WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have extended a joint welcome to the Golden State Warriors to celebrate their NBA championship, preempting President Trump's White House.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) invited the Warriors to Capitol Hill, according to a letter obtained by SB Nation. The two Bay Area lawmakers wrote that the Warriors make the “Bay Area and indeed the country deeply proud.”
“In celebration of your victory, we would be delighted to welcome you publicly as a team or personally as families to the United States Capitol,” Pelosi and Lee wrote to Steve Kerr and the team. “Please consider this as a blanket invitation whenever your individual schedules allow.”
The Warriors did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter. Sarah Sanders, the White House’s Deputy Press Secretary, said “nothing to announce at this time” about the president’s plans with the Warriors. Sanders did not clarify if President Trump has sent a request to the team or if a request was made at all.
A congressional response to the president involving the Warriors had been brewing for days following the Warriors win. Pelosi tweeted a week ago that she’d be “honored” to welcome the Warriors to the Capitol. At Pelosi’s weekly press conference with reporters, she furthered her comments when asked.
“I mean, I'd like them to bring their families when they want to come. You know what I mean? In other words, this isn't about a hoopty doo. This is about when you're here, bring your families. We'd love to welcome them, just as we welcome all of America's families,” Pelosi said about extending invitations to the team.
“People have to know that there's something wonderful here for them to see, the greatness of America,” Pelosi continued. “And if there's anything that gives me optimism, it's the greatness of our country, and that God is always with us and we can get through anything.”
Pelosi’s comments come on the heel of many remarks across the regular season about Trump by NBA personnel, the Warriors included. Kerr has said a litany: that Trump is “ill-suited” for the presidency, that he’s a “blowhard,” and after the election he said that he wouldn’t visit the White House if the Warriors won the championship.
Multiple Warriors players were asked if they would attend a White House celebration with President Trump. Matt Barnes ran away from a reporter during the team’s championship parade. Andre Iguodala said “hell nah” when asked if he would go to the White House, but said, ultimately, he would follow what the team’s leader, Stephen Curry.
After Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank suggested that Trump was a “real asset” to the country, Curry, UA’s signature athlete, responded by calling Trump an “ass.” Curry then stood by his remarks about going to the White House.
"Somebody asked me about it a couple of months ago, like a hypothetical, if the championship were to happen would I do it, and I think I answered 'I wouldn't go.' I still feel like that today," Curry told reporters. "But, obviously as a team, we're going to have a conversation."
From the Warriors’ win to the moment the letter was formally sent, there have been small jabs (tweets, statements, etc.) from the offices in regards to Trump.
“The invitation is a way to not only celebrate them but to honor their commitment to those values,” one Democratic staffer said. “This is a nod to the Warriors leadership on and off the court: many of the players and Coach Kerr's vocal opposition to the bigotry and anti-American values of Trump.”
According to a congressional aide with knowledge of the lawmakers’ thinking, the invitation was, in a way, an anti-Trump invitation.
“Sports teams in general since the election have experienced division on whether to accept White House invitations because of how their fans might feel and how that might be a tacit endorsement of the Trump agenda,” the aide said.
Comments
Maybe this will
Keep them from the August recess
By Two Number 9's on 06.21.17 12:36pm
Tee hee! Way to troll TrumpleThinSkin !!
By NYSofMind on 06.21.17 1:06pm
No way can Blumpf
recover from this.
By Two Number 9's on 06.21.17 2:19pm
Pelosi
National joke! Warriors should stay in their Sanctuary City( cesspool)!
By dodjer on 06.21.17 1:43pm
While the Warriors are meeting Congress, The Dump will be out holding a rally in Kansas...
By KapIsMyHomeboy on 06.21.17 11:02pm
Am I the outlier who wouldn't want to be seen with Pelosi or Trump?
By Peripatetic on 06.21.17 2:33pm
Nope, Pelosi is just as big an embarrassment
Pretty sure nobody wants to be seen near her botox-riddled visage…
By ToddCommish on 06.21.17 2:39pm
Pelosi may be disliked, but in no way is she an embarrassment to the level of Trump.
By Mr. Strangelove on 06.21.17 4:46pm
So this will become a thing...
Then we can speculate whether a team will visit the White House or The Capitol dependant on which side a team leans and what party holds the Presidency. Pat’s? The White House. Dubs? The Capitol. Because we even need partisanship in our sports.
By Gatoray on 06.21.17 3:02pm
We didn’t have this problem under previous Presidents AFAIK. It might be a Trump thing, not a partisan thing.
(Then again, the partisan thing led directly to the Trump thing, so…)
Here’s hoping we go back to business as usual, and soon.
By Shark Symphony on 06.21.17 6:10pm
Oddly enough, not that many people want to be photographed next to a turd...
By KapIsMyHomeboy on 06.21.17 11:05pm
sbnation, good job
glad you didn’t lock the comments on this like the last article of similar content. this thread may (and likely will) turn into a shitshow, but that’s better than posting a political or social issue article with the comments turned off. post all the social/political articles you want, but have the backbone to hear what the site’s users have to say. preventing or blocking feedback/user input is the opposite of what this site is supposed to be about (with some exceptions of course, like inappropriate comments, but that’s why you’ve got mods).
By hot saucerman on 06.21.17 3:12pm
AMEN
It is incredibly disheartening when an SBN writer decides to post and turn off comments, and seems entirely inconsistent with SBN ideals. If consumers wanted one way communication from writers, traditional media would not be dying so quickly.
By Gwinnett Gamecock on 06.21.17 3:41pm
yep
the reason i use this site is not for the writing (which isn’t to say the writing is bad, there are plenty of well-written and insightful articles – but this is not Grantland), but rather for the community of users that discuss and debate sports topics in the comment threads. when that is taken away, why come to this site at all? if SBNation is gonna have articles that focus on social or political issues (which i have no problem with them doing, at all), don’t attempt to censor or silence the community that uses this site. sure, there are some people on here who post the same stupid/ignorant comments on every article of that nature, but that comes with the territory. prohibiting all discussion completely is incongruous with what this site is supposed to be.
By hot saucerman on 06.21.17 4:36pm
"the same stupid/ignorant comments"
LOLeflop cant compair to Jordan cause jordan lost before he got to the finals!!! lolll Jordan would prolly avrage 70 a game and cure cancer if he played today without handchecking cause evrybody knows thats the only thing thats changed since 1995!
By Gwinnett Gamecock on 06.21.17 4:53pm
precisely
yet comments on lebron/MJ articles are never blocked. (obviously, bad opinions on basketball don’t compare to bad opinions on "social" issues in terms of harmfulness and the like, but the point is the same)
hopefully this thread being unlocked represents a move away from that former trend for SBNation.
By hot saucerman on 06.21.17 6:02pm
agreed
By Proud Defender of Academic Integrity on 06.21.17 4:50pm
Here's what sports site SBNation thinks about it:
"But just because it is his right doesn’t make it right. It’s an honor to meet the President of the United States in an official visit like this, no matter who sits in the Oval Office. Turning down the invite seems petty, and it shifts the focus away from the honor that’s been bestowed on the team to one player’s personal politics."
Source
By goldeneye101 on 06.21.17 3:41pm
That has been previously mentioned, and the response is
’That’s what one SBN writer thinks, but no one speaks for the entire site.’ Given that the decision of what to feature on the mainpage is an indicator of general site opinion, I suspect this is a technically correct explanation to avoid being nailed for hypocrisy, but whatever.
Now that the issue is much more prominent than with the Bruin player, I would love to see another front-page piece from the hockey editor reinforcing the seemingly obvious ideals that the office is bigger than the person who currently holds it, and that if one really wishes to see a decline in political divisiveness and overheated rhetoric, one has an obligation to make personal contributions to those ends.
By Gwinnett Gamecock on 06.21.17 3:55pm
the office isn't bigger than the person who holds it
And the person holding it isn’t worthy of respect by virtue of holding it.
By Proud Defender of Academic Integrity on 06.21.17 4:51pm
To be fair
I could care less about Trump, don’t care one way or the other and I felt the exact same way about Obama. They are politicians, period and because of that they are the same and equally artificial. I don’t blame players for not wanting to meet Trump or Obama, to be fair when it comes to Sport and Athletics Obama seemed more authentic.
This isn’t 1962, Presidents are no longer put on a pedestal and worshipped. The office of the President has changed just like society for better and for worse, I prefer players simply declining a visit on principle than making some ridiculous display of displeasure to inflate their egos and Twitter accounts…
By Gatoray on 06.21.17 7:55pm
this false equivalency that keeps getting assigned to Trump and "all other politicians" as being the same is not legitimate or accurate. anyhow, Trump isn’t a politician.
the former is what is happening, not the latter. i’m not clear on if you meant to insinuate that the latter was happening, but i’ve yet to see a Warrior or Patriot player make "some ridiculous display" concerning a potential WH visit.
By hot saucerman on 06.21.17 11:26pm
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/17/chris-long-devin-mccourty-release-standingpats-vid/
By Gatoray on 06.22.17 1:33am
hmm
in what way is a video that reasonably and rationally states the players’ reasoning behind not going to the WH considered a "ridiculous display of displeasure to inflate their egos and Twitter accounts"?
McCourtey: "For me it was simple. I don’t believe in excluding other people. Let people be who they are."
Long: "My son grows up, and I believe the legacy of our president is gonna be what it is, I don’t want him to say, ‘Hey Dad, why’d you go when you knew the right thing was to not go?’"
how is that a "ridiculous display of displeasure to inflate their egos and Twitter accounts"?
By hot saucerman on 06.22.17 10:48am
on point
So annoying when the "all politicians are bad" tripe is brought out to obscure meaningful differences in the quality of various "leaders."
By Proud Defender of Academic Integrity on 06.22.17 1:41am