June 29, 2019

Soccer Star Megan Rapinoe Is Making Trump Very Uncomfortable

Now AOC is cheering her on.

rapinoe header

Alessandra Tarantino/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Tuesday, US women’s soccer star and team co-captain Megan Rapinoe was asked by a reporter whether she would celebrate a victory at the Oval Office should her team win the World Cup this year. Rapinoe responded: “I’m not going to the fucking White House.”

President Donald Trump unleashed a series of tweets on Wednesday chastising Rapinoe for disrespecting “our Country, the White House or our Flag” and inviting the team to the White House. “Megan should WIN first before she TALKS!” he tweeted.

The soccer star later doubled down on her remarks, though she apologized for cursing. “Considering how much time and effort and pride we take in the platform that we have, and using it for good, and for leaving the game in a better place and hopefully the world in a better place—I don’t think that I would want to go,” Rapinoe said at a press conference. “I would encourage my teammates to think hard about lending that platform, or having that co-opted by an administration that doesn’t feel the same way and fight for the same things we fight for.”

Rapinoe, who is openly gay, has been vocal about her disdain for Trump in the past, according to Deadspin: In a Sports Illustrated profile last month, Rapinoe said she was “not going to fake it, hobnob with the president, who is clearly against so many of the things that I am [for] and so many of the things that I actually am.”

Rapinoe was also the first white or female athlete to take a knee during the national anthem in support of football player Colin Kaepernick’s protest of America’s systemic oppression of people of color. She is not singing the anthem during this year’s World Cup. And she has been outspoken on LGBTQ issues and social change. 

But even if she wouldn’t visit Trump, that doesn’t mean Rapinoe is planning to steer clear of celebrating in high places. After she scored two goals to lead the national women’s soccer team to victory in the quarterfinals over France on Friday, a different DC celebrity extended an invitation for a visit.

“It may not be the White House,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but Rapinoe and the women’s national soccer team were welcome to tour the House of Representatives “anytime they’d like.”

“Consider it done,” Rapinoe replied.

 

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate