Donald Trump’s relationships with championship sports teams have made news several times, whether it’s a fast food buffet for the Clemson Tigers or an invitation to the Golden State Warriors withdrawn after some players said they’d boycott. But one thing you haven’t read about is a women’s team being served cold fast food, or a women’s team having its invitation withdrawn. And that’s not because women’s sports teams are playing nicer with Trump—it’s because this White House is not recognizing or celebrating women’s championship teams.
“Not a single women’s championship team has made a solo visit to the White House under Trump,” the Washington Post’s David Nakamura reports, “although several women’s teams participated in an event in 2017 during which Trump celebrated numerous men’s and women’s college champions in nonrevenue sports.”
Not 2018 women’s NCAA basketball champions Notre Dame, not the 2017 WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx or the 2018 WNBA champion Seattle Storm. The 2017 NCAA basketball champion South Carolina Gamecocks did turn down an invitation to a group event that came six months after their win.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Trump celebrated a men’s lower-division NCAA football champion team. That made Trump the first president since Bill Clinton, in 1995, to invite a lower-division champion … while he’s also the first president to break a tradition of inviting women’s NCAA basketball champions that had been going since 1983, through Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised to hear that Donald Trump is refusing to celebrate women’s achievements. Anybody? Anybody? Didn’t think so.