President Trump is pushing to have the Washington Commanders’ new $3.7 billion football stadium named after him, according to a report on Saturday.
“It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen,” one source told ESPN.
While the White House did not confirm the outlet’s reporting, press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested the name has a nice ring to it.
“That would surely be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible,” Leavitt said in a Saturday statement to The Hill.
The president is expected to attend the Commanders game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday and will be the guest of the team’s ownership group leader, Josh Harris.
The two will discuss the new stadium’s name then, according to ESPN.
“The team doesn’t have the authority. They can’t name the stadium … on their own,” one of the sport outlet’s sources said.
“The city would be involved in that decision, and the Park Service would be involved,” they added.
The Commanders did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the matter.
The team is slated to return to the grounds of the old Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium, which sits on federal land in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood. Although the site is managed by the National Park Service, Congress passed a law last year granting the district’s local leaders control over the stadium’s redevelopment.
The D.C. Council in September voted 11-2 to approve the NFL team’s return to the nation’s capital after playing in Landover, Md., for the past 28 years.
Republicans in the House advocated for the expedited approval of redevelopment plans for the stadium over the summer and recently introduced a measure to ensure that all D.C. Council legislation undergoes a 60-day congressional review period prior to its passage, while preventing council members from passing bills that are similar to measures disapproved by Congress.
