Press targets Olympic hockey teams over Trump White House celebration

One of the feel-good moments of the State of the Union address this week was President Donald Trump recognizing America’s gold medal-winning men’s hockey team. This should have been a great unifying and patriotic moment, but our elitist media never want any moments of unity under Trump. They had to make it about how the hockey team became his mascots.

One of the annoying trends of the Olympics was witnessing sports reporters – whether American or European – asking questions to our Olympians about how they could represent America with this horrible president at the helm and his immigration-enforcement actions. Does anyone recall these reporters bothering athletes about how they could represent America when Barack Obama or Joe Biden were president? Of course not.

On “CBS Evening News” on Wednesday, Feb. 25, reporter Jonah Kaplan pushed around USA hockey goalie Jeremy Swayman over Trump’s locker-room call to the victorious men. The president joked “I must tell you, we’re gonna have to bring the women’s team, You do know that.” The men laughed at the joke, and the left treated that as some kind of human-rights violation.

Kaplan urged Swayman to confess the sin in the laughter: “Yep, we should have reacted differently. We know that. We are so excited for the women’s team, we have so much respect for the women’s team.” Then women’s hockey player Kelly Panek agreed that the teams had mutual admiration. But the media wanted to separate them and villainize the men. Once again, CBS doesn’t look like it’s become “MAGA-coded” under Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, as the press claims.

On Thursday’s “Good Morning America” on ABC, Co-host Michael Strahan asked Olympic women’s hockey team captain Hilary Knight partway through the interview: “But Hilary, there has been a lot of talk about that call the president made to the men’s hockey team. Will the women’s team be accepting his offer to come to the White House?”

Knight made it seem like it won’t happen: “I’m not sure. I’m really not sure where that stands. There was an announcement the other day. As far as my knowledge, like, I have not seen anything.”

She then took her swipe at Trump: “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.”

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Co-host Robin Roberts reacted as though Knight and the team had been subjected to some tremendous misogyny: “Well, I hope that you — and you’ve handled it — everyone — with such — with such grace and strength.”

It was the same on Thursday’s “CBS Mornings,” as Co-host Vladimir Duthiers underlined “the men are taking some heat for laughing along with the president at that joke [at] the expense of the women’s hockey team.”    

CBS aired a clip of Knight from ESPN: “There’s a genuine level of support there and respect. I think that’s being overshadowed by a quick lapse. I think the guys were in a tough spot, so I think it’s a shame this storyline and narrative has kind of blown up and overshadowing that connection and genuine interest in one another and cheering each other on.”

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On Thursday night’s “World News Tonight,” ABC reporter Will Reeve ran Swayman’s confession alongside fellow men’s Olympian Charlie McAvoy taking his place in the line of regrets: “Certainly sorry for how we responded to it. And if you know the men’s team and if you know the relationships that we have, the amount of time that we’ve spent, you know, with the women’s team and how we’ve supported them, it’s certainly not reflective of how we feel.” Reeve also repeated Knight’s scolding answer about Trump’s “distasteful” phone call to the men’s team.

The Big Three broadcast networks also played up the controversy over FBI Director Kash Patel showing up to the men’s hockey victory celebration in the locker room and drinking beers with them. From Feb. 23 through the evening of Feb. 27 there were five mentions of Patel hanging out with Team USA for a total of 215 seconds aired on ABC (129 seconds), CBS (52 seconds), and NBC (34 seconds) or more than three and a half minutes’ worth.

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The women’s hockey team declined a White House invite, citing “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.” But the networks wanted a “snub” narrative. NPR ran this online headline about a ’90s rapper from the group Public Enemy: “Flavor Flav is among women’s hockey team fans outraged by presidential snub.” Cultural reporter Neda Ulaby quoted the rapper offering an alternative celebration on his Instagram channel: “If the USA Women’s Hockey Team wants a real celebration and invite… I’ll host them in Las Vegas.” Ulaby included a leftist critic trashing “anti-trans” conservatives who claim to support women’s sports.

Other leftist media commentators trashed the men’s hockey team after the State of the Union, calling them “lickspittles” and “self-absorbed scumbag misogynists.” Nothing can be an occasion for unity when Trump brings champions to the White House or the State of the Union. It was never an occasion for broadcast network muckraking or mud-throwing when Obama or Biden did it. The media are world-class competitors in partisanship. 

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