If the White House ever honored a champion of PR spin, it would award itself a customized “45” jersey. President Trump announced in a written statement late Monday that the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles were uninvited from the customary ceremony on the South Lawn, explaining that they were “unable to come … with their full team.” Fans planning to attend “deserve[d] better” than a partial complement of players, Trump reasoned. Judging by the statement’s huffiness, so did he.
“They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem,” Trump wrote in the Third Person.
Philadelphia wide receiver Torrey Smith, one of the players who said publicly that he wouldn’t attend the White House event, tweeted that “no one refused to go simply because Trump ‘insists’ folks stand for the anthem.”
So many lies smh
Here are some facts
1. Not many people were going to go
2. No one refused to go simply because Trump “insists” folks stand for the anthem
3. The President continues to spread the false narrative that players are anti military pic.twitter.com/89GUNhJ4eE— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) June 4, 2018
Kneeling during “The Star Spangled Banner” wasn’t an issue for the Eagles during the last regular season—none of them participated in the demonstration, though safety Malcom Jenkins raised his fist during the song for multiple weeks.
Trump referred to the NFL’s new anthem policy in a follow-up tweet later in the evening:
The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2018
This, too, has nothing to do with the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles.
Even if it did, Smith provided to Dave Zirin in February other, common reasons why a player may not want to be this president’s guest, including the obvious “this individual also called my friends and my peers SOBs.” That’d resonate with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who didn’t need any anthem-like controversy to forgo their own presidential honors.
ESPN reported that “a large group of Eagles players had decided not to attend, including most—if not all—of the black players.” Trump can say that such absences do wrong by the White House’s guests. But spotty showings at these gatherings is common—misleading photos aside, the frequent Lombardi lessees New England Patriots have sent wavering numbers of personnel, Pats beat reporter Dan Roche observed in April, and the inconsistency isn’t correlated with the political party in charge. The roll call alone isn’t historically a cause for scrapping a champion’s ceremony. Clearly, context matters.
But it’s possible that the context this time—politics and race—was about to suppress attendance to a humiliating low. In that case, canceling the event is a public relations ploy. So consider this: A critical mass of Eagles players didn’t want to participate in a photo-op. The White House obviously was worried it’d be a bad photo-op. Why do the photo-op at all?
This, too, has nothing to do with the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles.
