July 10, 2019

Megan Rapinoe to Donald Trump: Your Message Is Excluding People

The US women’s national soccer team co-captain also reiterated her stance on a White House visit.

Megan Rapinoe, on the heels of leading the United States to its fourth Women’s World Cup title, delivered a searing message for Donald Trump on Tuesday, telling the president that he needed to “do better for everyone,” including people like Rapinoe and minorities.

The US women’s soccer co-captain had been sitting for a one-on-one interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who noted the likelihood of Trump watching her appearance. “What is your message to the president?” he asked.

After taking a moment to ponder, Rapinoe turned directly to the camera and said: “I think that I would say that your message is excluding people. You’re excluding me. You’re excluding people that look like me. You’re excluding people of color. You’re excluding, you know, Americans that maybe support you.”

“You have an incredible responsibility as the chief of this country to take care of every single person and you need to do better for everyone,” she added. 

As for a White House visit, Rapinoe reiterated her stance that she had no interest in such an event. “I would not go and every teammate I talked to would not go.”

“I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked hard to build and the things that we fight for and the way that we live our lives—I don’t think we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration.”

 

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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.

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