Adam Minter, Columnist

The President Has Forgotten How to Talk Football

Trump’s push for the Washington Commanders to revive a racial slur shows that he doesn’t understand the shifting values among young fans — and the sponsors courting them.

July 26, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC

By Adam Minter

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

Wrong playbook.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North America

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When President Donald Trump demanded that the Washington Commanders change their name back to the Redskins — a slur that the team dropped as a moniker in 2020 — it should have surprised no one.

Not only because he’s shown that he can’t resist a culture war skirmish, but because for decades, the nation’s most popular sport has been leveraged by presidents to bolster their standings. During his first term, Trump knew the play. He ran it successfully against NFL players who knelt during the National Anthem.