USA Women’s Hockey Captain Hilary Knight ‘Unsure’ if Team Will Attend White House Celebration
USA women’s hockey team captain Hilary Knight characterized President Trump’s joke in his call with the men’s team as “distasteful,” and said she’s unsure if the team will make the trip to the White House.
President Trump called into the men’s locker room following their victory, the Americans’ first Olympic gold medal in hockey since the iconic “Miracle on Ice” team at Lake Placid in 1980, and invited them to the White House and State of the Union (SOTU) address.
At one point, he joked that he would be impeached if he didn’t invite the women’s team as well.
“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” Trump said while speaking to the men’s team.
Trump quipped that if he didn’t invite them, “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”
During an interview with Good Morning America on Thursday, Knight was asked whether, in light of the president’s joke, the women’s team would accept the president’s invitation to the White House.
Knight began by saying she was unsure if the team would be making the trip. She then went on to speak about the “distasteful” nature of the president’s joke.
“I thought the call in itself was distasteful and an awesome learning moment to refocus the narrative and understand our words matter, and how we speak about women matters, and we need to celebrate this team,” Knight said.
As noted in the X post above, the team has accepted rapper Flava Flav’s invitation to a party in Las Vegas. The problem with that, if the team is genuinely concerned about how we “speak about women,” is that Flava Flav has been arrested for domestic violence multiple times.
Is that more harmful than President Trump’s joke?