Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno told Fox News on Wednesday that he offered $1 billion to purchase the Cleveland Indians baseball team to prevent the franchise from changing its name to the Guardians.
Moreno strongly criticized the team’s decision to change names in July and labeled it as caving to “the woke mob,” Fox News reported. He said there were better alternatives, including some that would have honored Native American culture.
Additionally, Moreno said that one of the reasons he wanted to purchase the team was because the Cleveland Indians mean “a lot to northeast Ohio,” Fox News reported. He claimed to have made an offer to the Dolan family, the team’s owners, but was rejected.
Wait, wait — Bernie Moreno has $1 billion??? https://t.co/yrwl8Ofkkv
— Andrew Tobias (@AndrewJTobias) September 23, 2021
“So for the name change to happen, it was just a classic example of the kind of cancel culture woke-ism that’s affecting our nation,” Moreno said. “And it just really bothers me that a small group of White, liberal activists can make something like that happen.” (RELATED: The Cleveland Indians Change Their Name To The Guardians)
“It’s the wrong decision and we want to reverse it,” he continued.
The Cleveland Indians officially declined to comment on Moreno’s offer, Fox News reported.
Moreno used to be a luxury car dealer in Cleveland before changing careers to a blockchain executive, Cincinnati.com reported. He declared his candidacy for the Senate in April. It is his first bid for political office, according to the outlet. He has been an outspoken critic regarding the cancel culture movement around the country.
“It starts by silencing your words, and when they silence your words, they control your thoughts,” Moreno said on Fox News. “They get that. People are intuitively smart about these kinds of things, and they’ve just had it.”
“People do not want that. This is America,” he continued. “We believe in the marketplace of ideas. We believe in a country with the principle where we can speak our mind, even if we’re wrong, by the way.”