Sports analyst Skip Bayless has performed a U-turn over Washington’s NFL name change after Donald Trump’s demand to the franchise. 

Known as the Commanders since 2022, Washington’s football team dropped the controversial ‘Redskins’ moniker five years ago amid uproar over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

However, the president last week called for the franchise to return to its former divisive name in a baffling Truth Social rant. 

And Bayless, despite previously branding the ‘Redskins’ name ‘racist’, suggested he would embrace Trump’s name change on one condition. 

‘If someone can conclusively demonstrate that a majority of tribal leaders across America are all for the return of Redskins and Indians as team nicknames, then I would be all for it,’ Bayless said in a video shared to his X platform. 

‘We went through this a number of years ago back in my First Take days. Some tribal leaders would speak out pro and some would speak out con. I just don’t know. But if you showed me that a consensus were now pro, you know, I’m just hoping this will at least spark a new wave of debate.’

Donald Trump demanded that Washington’s NFL team returns to its ‘Redskins’ moniker 

Skip Bayless, who previously branded the term racist, appeared open to the change 

‘I’m hoping tribal leaders everywhere will just stand up and speak out on this starting now. Whatever their consensus opinion is, if there is a consensus, and maybe there isn’t, but I’ll stand behind the majority. Maybe I’m just being just another naively arrogant white person, but I must admit I do miss Washington DC’s NFL team being called the Redskins,’ he concluded. 

Bayless added earlier in his podcast that the ‘Commanders’ nickname ‘sounds dumber than ever,’ especially after quarterback Jayden Daniels led Washington to the NFC Championship game. 

The former Fox Sports host’s argument was a major change in tune from his past opinions on the old moniker. However, he did still maintain that he believed the ‘Redskins’ name stirred controversy. 

‘To me, Redskins remains a racist nickname,’ Bayless also said in the 12-minute clip. ‘What if an NFL team had been nicknamed the “Blackskins”?’

Bayless’s remarks come after Trump claimed that there was a ‘clamoring’ for the ‘Redskins’ nickname to make a return.  

‘The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team,’ Trump wrote on social media. ‘There is a big clamoring for this.’

While Trump may be slightly off about the team name (they were the ‘Washington Redskins’ and then the ‘Washington Football Team’ but never the ‘Washington Redskins Football Team’), he is right about uproar over the changes.

The president took to social media last week to claimed there was a ‘clamoring’ for the change

A Washington Redskins fan looks on prior to the game against the Miami Dolphins in 2019 

Fans and even some Native American groups have voiced support for the team’s new ownership group to revert to ‘Redskins.’ Several public opinion polls of self-identified Native Americans have found most were not offended by the term, while critics have pointed to academic research by the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley that found the opposite was true.

Trump appeared to reference the public polling in favor of a name change last weekend.

‘Our great Indian people, in mᴀssive numbers, want this to happen,’ he claimed. ‘Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of pᴀssion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!’

He also demanded the same from MLB’s Cleveland Guardians, née: ‘Indians.’

‘Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past,’ he wrote.

It’s unclear where Trump is getting ‘six original baseball teams’ from. The NHL famously has six original teams and MLB’s National League was once limited to a half dozen clubs. However, the Guardians franchise is in the American League, where it has been known as the Broncos, Naps and Indians before adopting its current moniker in 2022.

Of course, ‘Indians’ is not quite the same as ‘Redskins’ – a traditionally pejorative term detested by some Native Americans and tolerated by others.

Trump later underlined his demands on social media, writing in a second post: ‘My statement on the Washington Redskins has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way.

Leah Muskin-Pierret of Washington DC works on signs as part of a Native Americans protest against the Redskins team name in 2017. The team would change its name three years later 

‘I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington.

‘The Team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be more exciting for everyone. Cleveland should do the same with the Cleveland Indians. The Owner of the Cleveland Baseball Team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change.

‘What he doesn’t understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election. Indians are being treated very unfairly. MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!’

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Commanders owner Joshua Harris met Trump at the Oval Office in May to announce plans to bring the league’s draft to the National Mall in 2027.

Washington was selected as draft hosts just days after DC mayor Muriel Bowser announced a plan to bring the team back to the city with a new field on the site of the old RFK Stadium, where the team then known as the Redskins played until 1996.

Currently, RFK Stadium stands on the site on the banks of the Anacostia River in the eastern part of the city.

The building has been in the process of a prolonged demolition that has been delayed multiple times. The building was closed back in September 2019, but structural demolition has only begun this year.

It hasn’t just been the name that led to division among Native Americans. A year ago, the family of the man depicted in the former Redskins logo urged the team to bring his image back to the helmet after years of controversy over the image.

Washington D.C. and the NFL’s Commanders are set to announce a deal Monday to bring the team back within the city limits after a nearly three-decade run in Landover

A football and a jersey sit on top the Resolute desk in the office of President Donald Trump as he announces a plan to bring the NFL Draft to the National Mall in the spring of 2027 

‘The fans want him back and we want him back,’ Thomas White Calf, a great nephew of late Blackfeet Nation chief John Two Guns White Calf, told Fox News after meeting with Senator Steve Daines (Republican, Montana ).

Thomas’ pleas came four years after the team began its rebranding, first becoming the Washington Football Team on a temporary basis before adopting ‘Commanders’ and dropping the feathered John Two Guns White Calf emblem.

‘Our ancestor was the most famous and most pH๏τographed native in history,’ Thomas told Fox alongside his mother, Delphine White Calf, a niece of the late Blackfeet chief. ‘Two Guns was also the face on the Indian head nickel. I’m proud of him. The Blackfeet are proud of him.’

The club began as the Boston Braves in 1932 before changing its name to ‘Redskins’ a year later and moving to the US Capital in 1937. But it wasn’t until 1971 that Blackfeet leader Blackie Wetzel created a portrait of John Two Guns White Calf that ultimately became the team’s logo.