The Philadelphia Eagles were set to visit the White House on Tuesday to celebrate their Super Bowl LII championship, but their invitation since has been rescinded.
Due to the fact that some members of the Eagles were electing not to attend the White House, President Donald Trump revoked the invitation Monday, citing the national anthem protest as the reason some Eagles were not going to attend.
Wow.
This is the second time Trump has rescinded an invitation to a championship-winning team. He previously “revoked” the Golden State Warriors’ invite after they already had declined to attend, which is akin to uninviting someone after they say they won’t attend come to your party in high school.
Eagles owner Jeff Lurie made the choice to send a smaller group, according to NFL Media’s Mike Garafolo, in order to not put some players in a precarious position.
Former Eagles wide receiver Torrey Smith took to Twitter to set the record straight.
But back to Trump’s statement.
First of all, it’s cowardly and manipulative for the supposed leader of the free world to care so much about whether or not players disagree with his position on a number of topics, which is their right as American citizens. Secondly, it’s worth noting that the back half of that statement reads like something out of a C-rate 1940s propaganda film. Finally, Trump’s tantrum just goes to show how ridiculous it was that NFL owners believed he would lighten up on them if they capitulated to him over the national anthem issue.
It’s also worth noting that many athletes elected not to visit the White House when Barack Obama was president and the response was not to uninvite the whole team.
In closing, we’ll let former NFL executive vice president Joe Lockhart take it away.
