President Trump says the Guardians should change its name back to the Indians | Do you agree?

President Trump says the Guardians should change its name back to the Indians | Do you agree?

Uh, we gotta get to our last topic of the day. It’s brought to us by Epicor. Every team knows the value of hard work, of taking pride in what you build in practicing every detail to get the best results, but no one player, no matter how amazing, can do it all alone. Working together makes getting the win easier at Epicor, the All-Stars are the hardworking manufacturers and distributors who create and deliver the things we all need from Aerospace to electrical to medical devices, from small businesses with big dreams to growing enterprises with global visions, we’ll equip you with the right tools to move forward, think ahead and lead the way because as the clock ticks down, you need to make the most out of every hardworking minute. Easier doesn’t cut corners. Easier finds the lane. Discover your success at Easyearth Epicor.com. So when I landed yesterday, my first call was to bowl, my second call was to Jason just to go over, hey, what did I miss? What did I need to know? And I said, Jason, what did I miss in the sports world? And he says, I’m not sure if you saw this yet, but President Trump tweeted about the Indians. I didn’t see that and we’re gonna have to talk about it. So in case anyone missed it. In part of a longer post mentioning the Washington Commanders and other teams, President Trump said this on his own social media platform, thank you, and I quote from the president, the owner of the Cleveland baseball team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost 3 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, Mega, which I guarantee we will see a mega shirt at the game. Hey, listen, — that’s
— way too close. That’s way. Yeah that’s way too close. — I say
— that again. Do not. And if you and if you enunciate it slowly, me God see you better. But OK, your guys’ thoughts. I’m gonna stop talking. Well, I didn’t even see that one. The one I saw was the Redskin. So it went on there was multiple ones. I’m sure you saw Steve tag. — I’m sure I saw
— he was basically threatening the Redskins. — Change your name back or this is
— the one you saw this work was the initial and then it went on to continue. The initial post he put out was the Washington whatever should immediately change your name back to the Washington Redskins football team, but there is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the 6 original baseball teams with a storied past. Our great Indian people in massive numbers want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were 3 or 4 years ago. We are a country of passion and common sense. Owners get it. Yeah, that, that is, that’s not what I saw either. — What I saw was
— a lot of it. What I saw was he was basically saying, OK, Washington, you know, the Redskins are gonna move back to the RFK site, and that has been if you, if you know anybody that’s a Redskins fan or that lives in the Beltway, that this has been a point of contention since Dan Snyder took him to Maryland. There were, there’s a huge contingent. It’s, I mean, you think they’re going nuts in Cleveland about moving the team within Cuyahoga County. You can only imagine the factions that exist in the Beltway about the team leaving the DC. So now the plan is Stan Snyder sold the team. There’s a new owner. He has agreed to put the team back in DC, which has made a lot of fans very happy. They’re gonna use the old RFK site. What I didn’t understand was. Donald Trump basically said you won’t get this deal done. You will not move back to DC if you don’t change the name, which to me sounded like a threat. I don’t know how he would control the strings. He doesn’t have the authority on that. No, I was on a call literally 6 seconds that’s going to happen no matter what happens with the name. I, I was on a call this morning talking partly about this. Yes, he doesn’t have the authority and that’s my point. It’s not worth. Yeah, I hate I’d be like him basically saying to the Browns, you’re not moving the team to Brook Park. — This is
— talking. Yeah, I, I know. Like, oh my God, I would rather bathe in kerosene, yeah, and then to talk about this like, and I’ve said this before. I hate all of them. I hate Democrats. I hate Republicans. They’re all slimy. — They’re all out for
— their own special interests. — They’re not out for the good of
— the people. Look how many of them have become millionaires, if not billionaires, on a public servant’s salary. — The fact
— that I’m like viscerally angry that we have to talk about this, but we do so like. I’ll be totally honest, I didn’t love the name change from Indians. I didn’t think it was necessary. I have since come around to the point of like, it really doesn’t matter like the Wahoo thing. I get why people saw the wahoo as offensive. I, I get that. The name Indians, I didn’t think we were. I didn’t think it needed change, but all these years out from it, I don’t really care. I don’t. Care. You don’t care moving forward. Would you care if they went back to the Indians? I would actually, I think it’d be kind of foolish to go back at this point. Like you’ve, you’ve already planted your flag. Why? and it’s the same ownership group. Well, so why would you go back now? So let’s, let’s say this. It will not happen with this ownership group, stop, 100%. If it’s going to happen, it will happen when Blitzer is. I, I wasn’t going to go. I’ll say it. Zach calls me yesterday, right? Zach might as well calls me yesterday. He’s like, hey. You think it’s funny that the same ownership group owns both of those teams and is there any way that like there’s some sort of. Back door. I mean, David Blitzer is part owner of the Guardians, minority owner will eventually. Josh Harris is not part of this group, but Blitzer and Harris own the commanders. So I had, uh, Joe Vardon, who has a deep political history. It took Joe 37 seconds. I’m like, hey, go find the contribution records. Let’s just see. And there’s so much, and the, the bottom line was Blitzer contributed so much money to both sides that you can’t say. One way or the other, — by the way
— people do smart. Why smart. They’re at the craps table and they’re hedging their bets. So that’s what they do. They don’t care who’s in power, but they just want to have an avenue to one of them. — But
— most of them don’t contribute to both sides as heavily. Many of the successful business owners, Jason, do. Well, I’ve show me we’re not talking team owners. — Show me where Dan Gilbert has contributed to the
— Democratic, here’s what I’m saying. I’m not saying all of them. What I’m saying is in business, if you look. The, the, the big corporations now many of them have a track record with one side or the other, but there are a ton of very high powered corporations — that grease both
— sides of the for those in even in politics in the Democratic Party people like if you, there’s factions in the Democratic Party where they say corporate corporations donate heavily — to the Democratic Party to stop certain pieces of legislation among
— sports owners, I don’t think Mark Cuban is. I know he’s out now, but I don’t think he was contributing to the RNC. The Dolans were not contributing to DC they have sides, but Blitzer has spread it around. I think one thing Joe found was BlackRock donated a million dollars to, uh, Trump’s inauguration. I think I don’t wanna be speaking out of turn on that. No, I think that’s true, but for the most part they’ve spread around to where you can’t. Really say they’re one side or the other, so I don’t think that this is some big grand conspiracy thing of Trump working in cahoots with Harris and Blitzer to get the name changed. I don’t think that’s, but Jay, — but Jay said it was a good idea by Zach and Jay said
— it was absolutely worth looking at. He said it best. Look, the, the reason why politicians are so good is because it’s, it’s, it’s bait and switch and it’s the nice shiny object. The shiny object is the Guardians changed their name, right? Does that really matter? Because where I, the level I’m on? There’s never, there still is the Indians. The Indians are alive and well in every team shop. I can go today, buy me the Indians gear. — I could get any single hat with
— Wahoo on it. Gee, go to the game and count how many hats do you see that are guardians and how many hats do you see that? So the Dolans are like, look, I’ll be politically correct. We’ll change the names, but are they giving the money away from any merchandise that are are they stopping you? From wearing it to the game, no, I, I actually can’t. I actually think the name change was calculated to help with the with the eventual sale because remember that’s when they were looking for an investor. They were looking for a minority partner who would then eventually take majority control. I think part of that may have been a calculated hit of we’re gonna take the PR hit so that the next guy doesn’t have to, and it makes it makes the franchise more appealing to. You know how Major League Baseball got political and told Cleveland, you want the All-Star game? We gotta talk about this name change. We, we don’t, and, and there were, there were backroom deals allegedly made. We’re gonna take that under consideration. Oh but first step, you gotta get rid of that caricature of a, of a logo. So the Wahoo went. And then They got the All-Star game, and then. With the speed of a freight train, they announced we’re changing our name and we don’t know to what it’s like when you fire a coach, well, where are you going now? If you’ve got a great option sitting there, OK, convince me. But if you’re like, we don’t know what it is but it ain’t this and the same thing was going on in Atlanta and this is, by the way, this has been told to me from people that are inside Major League Baseball that covered it and know they knew the movings of what was going on. Braves were told the same thing. You want the All-Star game? Yeah, yeah, who, who wouldn’t want the All-Star game? That’d be great. OK, we gotta talk about this name change thing. OK, we’ll take it under advisement. Then they got the All-Star game. Now Major League Baseball said, so what’s, what’s the new baseball team gonna be called in Atlanta? We’re gonna be the Braves. What? They swerved. They didn’t cave to the pressure of Major League Baseball. And then what happened to, to the baseball All-Star game in Atlanta? They got it pulled They got it pulled under the guise that oh Georgia just passed this unfair voting act which is gonna suppress voting. So they pulled the All-Star game from Atlanta as a way of saying you’re not gonna change your name. We got you. You know it’s wild. I grew as we looked at this thing and, and, and this, you know, as they changed the name 3456 years ago, I don’t know what it is now. As I, as you get older. Um, I start to have the, the level of, listen, man, you know, if you ask me who, what, what do you care about the name change or healthcare, and I talk about healthcare. You were, I care about poverty levels, people being oh, yeah, but books in schools, so I don’t have no, listen, if you wanna figure out what it is, I go out to. You know, to, to the reservations and go out and literally get a council together and get a council together, get a council together and have a summit on it and see what they think about it. That’s, that’s the problem. I agree, Jason. If, if there’s, we can be offended all we want by the nickname. The question is, this is the ultimate question. Are you calling yourselves Indians to make fun of us? or are you calling yourself Indians? To honor us, that is the root question. And here’s what should have been done and wasn’t. What should have happened was they should have put together a council of Indian tribes in Ohio and brought them all together and let them make the decision. Is this and, and here’s what likely would have happened, you know what we’re honored by the I, I’ve talked to plenty of Native Americans who have said, well, yeah, you’re not called the Tigers because Tigers are pushovers. You’re not called the Chiefs because Chiefs are easy to whip. You’re called the Chiefs because you’re a fighting tribe and you’re gonna win the game for the, you know, so let the Indian people tell us this is truly and patently offensive and we would like you to change the name. But what didn’t happen was there was money that was made on this name change all of the new material, all of the new guardian’s gear, all of that there was money made. Are we paying the Native American tribes anything? Did we ever pay them anything to use their image and likeness? We, we, I listen, you wanna have an argument about the Chief Wahoo being derogatory? I’m here for that. That that played into some stereotypes that are very negative and the Native American community will tell you that. What I wanted to see happen was you go to the tribes and you say, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna let you decide if the name Indians is offensive. And if it’s not, and you, and you see it as an honor, now, now guess what, now we don’t say the word Indians. It’s gone, it’s gone from our vocabulary. If you think that it’s an honor, we’re gonna do it but here’s what we’re gonna do. You guys commissioned an artist. And you draw, give us 3 samplings of what the new logo should be, the new Indian. The, the, the fighting Indian, not the caricature with the big nose, like the fighting Indian. What is it? And, and furthermore, Because we hijacked your name for years and now we’re gonna take it out of the sports lexicon. We’re going to pay the Indian tribes in Ohio annual checks of 10% of every piece of merchandise we ever sell from now till whenever. Did they do that? No, they didn’t do that. Not only that, they’ve come out and said, Hey, we’re cool with, with, we’re gonna keep the, the Chief Wahoo and we’re gonna keep all of that for marketing purposes. Wait, wait, hold on, hold on, it’s offensive to call yourself Indian, but it’s not offensive to make money off their likeness. Can’t have it both ways. Last thing I’ll say, I know we gotta go. Uh, I’m far more interested in signing Stephen Quon to an extension and find an outfielder who can hit the ball out of the ballpark 30 times a year than I am over the name. I just don’t care. I just don’t care. I don’t care.

President Trump recently stated that the Cleveland Guardians should revert to their former “Indians” name, arguing that the change would restore tradition and honor the franchise’s history. He has voiced similar opinions about other sports teams that have changed their names in recent years, suggesting that these moves have taken away from the identity and culture of the teams.

The Guardians, however, have made it clear that they have no plans to return to the old name. Team leadership has reaffirmed their commitment to the current identity, which was adopted after years of discussion surrounding cultural sensitivity and respect for Indigenous communities. This segment dives into Trump’s comments, the organization’s stance, and the ongoing debate among fans about whether the Guardians should revisit their history—or continue moving forward with the name they’ve embraced.

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