Team USA soccer co-captain Megan Rapinoe has made it clear that she does not support President Donald Trump. In her latest interview, the 33-year-old said she is “not going to the f—ing White House” if Team USA wins the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Trump has already called her protests during the national anthem inappropriate.
“I’m not going to the f—ing White House,” Rapinoe told Eight by Eight. “No. I’m not going to the White House.”
Rapinoe predicted the U.S. soccer team would not even be invited if they won the World Cup.
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“No f—ing way will we be invited to the White House. [Trump] tries to avoid inviting a team that might decline. Or, like he did when the Warriors turned him down, he’ll claim they hadn’t been invited in the first place,” Rapinoe said, referring to the Golden State Warriors’ decision not to go after winning the NBA Finals last year.
When asked if she spears for the whole team, Rapinoe said she did not know how everyone voted in 2016, but “I hope no one voted for him.”
The openly-gay player has used the biggest stage in women’s soccer to make sure her protests against inequality are heard. She has been protesting during the national anthem since 2016, following in the footsteps of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, by kneeling. During the World Cup, she has refused to sing along. In a Yahoo Sports interview, she described herself as a “walking protest.”
“I learned very early on on this team that we have a specific platform, and we reach a lot of people,” Rapinoe told Yahoo Sports. “Realizing the team had that platform meshed pretty naturally with wanting to do the right thing.”
In that same interview, Rapinoe added, “I’ll probably never put my hand over my heart. I’ll probably never sing the national anthem again.”
In an interview with The Hill, Trump was asked if it was appropriate for Rapinoe to protest. “No. I don’t think so,” the president replied.
Rapinoe and the other 27 members of the U.S. women’s national team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation over pay discrimination based on gender. The women’s team won World Cups in 1999 and 2015, but the men’s team has never won. While some Democratic presidential candidates have supported their push for equal pay, but Trump refused to take a position.
“I think a lot of it also has to do with the economics. I mean who draws more, where is the money coming in. I know that when you have the great stars like [Portugal’s Cristiano] Ronaldo and some of these stars … that get paid a lot of money, but they draw hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump told The Hill. “But I haven’t taken a position on that at all… I’d have to look at it.”
Even though she knows kneeling angers some fans, Rapinoe told Sports Illustrated she has no plans to change.
“I was on my own,” Rapinoe told the magazine in May. “That opened up this new confidence in me of like, F— it, I know that in my heart, my intentions are good, and whether society at large is supporting me, it’s not something I can guide my decisions on.”
Team USA faces host nation France on the quarter-finals Friday at 3 p.m. ET.
Photo credit: Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images
