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    Jalen Hurts stays away as Eagles visit White House to celebrate Super Bowl victory

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    Donald Trump feted the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles at the White House on Monday, but several players, including quarterback Jalen Hurts, decided to skip the celebration.Hurts and other players cited scheduling conflicts as the reasons for their absences, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.Despite the quarterback’s absence, Trump called Hurts a “terrific guy and terrific player” who turned in “one stellar performance after another” during the Eagles’ run to the championship.“The Eagles have turned out to be an incredible team, an incredible group,” Trump said.In April, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said attending the White House was not compulsory for players. “Our culture is that these are optional things,” Lurie said. “If you want to enjoy this, come along and we’ll have a great time and if you don’t, it is totally an optional thing.”NBC Sports Philadelphia reported that other Eagles players who did not attend Monday’s ceremony included AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Brandon Graham.The Eagles were disinvited to the White House in 2018, the last time they won the Super Bowl, after a number of players said they would drop out amid tensions over the anthem protests that had swept the NFL. Trump, then in his first term as president, had attacked players who knelt during the anthem to protest against racial inequality. At the time, Trump wrote on social media that the Eagles were in dispute “with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.”Asked by a reporter on the red carpet of the Time magazine gala last week whether he would take part in the White House visit, Hurts responded with an awkward “um” and long silence before walking away.The Eagles’ star running back, Saquon Barkley, visited Trump over the weekend at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, and caught a ride with the president to Washington on Air Force One.“He loved it,” Trump said of Barkley’s flight on the presidential airplane. “He’s a great young guy and an incredible football player. Saquon had a season for the ages, running behind the most powerful offensive line in the NFL,” Trump said.Barkley, meanwhile, pushed back on social media criticism earlier Monday for spending time with Trump. He noted that he has golfed with Barack Obama too.“Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand,” Barkley posted on X.While Trump’s first term in office led to a number of athletes, such as LeBron James and Megan Rapinoe, criticizing the president, there has been little pushback from the sports world so far in his second term. In February, Trump became the first sitting US president to attend the Super Bowl, and his presence was welcomed by several players, including the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.Teams who have won a major championship are traditionally invited to the White House to celebrate their victory with the president. However, during Trump’s first-term several teams were not invited or made it clear they would not attend if they were. Those teams included the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, and the United States Women’s National Team after their victory at the 2019 Women’s World Cup. More

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      MLB commissioner Manfred to rule on Pete Rose ban after Trump meeting

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      MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose with Donald Trump at a meeting two weeks ago and he plans to rule on a request to end the sport’s permanent ban of the career hits leader, who died in September.Speaking Monday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Manfred said he and Trump have discussed several issues, including Manfred’s concerns over how Trump’s immigration policies could impact players from Cuba, Venezuela and other foreign countries.Manfred is considering a petition to have Rose posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose prior to the 17-time All-Star’s death at age 83.“I met with President Trump two weeks ago, I guess now, and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but I’m not going beyond that,” Manfred said. “He’s said what he said publicly, I’m not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.”Trump posted on social media in February that he plans to issue “a complete PARDON of Pete Rose.” Trump posted on Truth Social that Rose “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.” It’s unclear what a presidential pardon might include – Trump did not specifically mention a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence. The president said he would sign a pardon for Rose “over the next few weeks” but has not addressed the matter since.Rose had 4,256 hits and also holds records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played on three World Series winners.An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.Lenkov is seeking Rose’s reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list can’t be considered for election to the Hall. Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s request. Manfred in 2015 denied Rose’s application for reinstatement.Manfred said reinstating Rose now was “a little more complicated than it might appear on the outside” and did not commit to a timeline except that “I want to get it done promptly as soon as we get the work done. I’m not going to give this the pocket veto. I will in fact issue a ruling.”Rose’s reinstatement doesn’t mean he would automatically appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall’s Historical Overview Committee, which is picked by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and approved by the Hall’s board. Manfred is an ex-officio member of that board and says he has been in regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.“I mean, believe me, a lot of Hall of Fame dialogue on this one,” Manfred said.If reinstated, Rose potentially would be eligible for consideration to be placed on a ballot to be considered by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee in December 2027.Manfred added he doesn’t think baseball’s current ties to legal sports betting should color views on Rose’s case.“There is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, ordinary citizen, can do on the one hand, and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do on the other in respect to gambling,” he said. “The fact that the law changed, and we sell data and/or sponsorships, which is essentially all we do, to sports betting enterprises, I don’t think changes that. It’s a privilege to play Major League Baseball. As with every privilege, there comes responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that they not bet on the game.”Manfred did not go into details on his discussion with Trump over foreign-born players other than to say he expressed worry.“Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we’re always concerned about ingress and egress,” Manfred said. “We have had dialogue with the administration about this topic. And, you know, they’re very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to go back and forth, and I’m going to leave it at that.” More

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      Pro baseball player Tarik El-Abour is everything RFK Jr says he can’t be

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      When Tarik El-Abour was in middle school, his teacher asked him and his classmates a simple question. What do you want to be when you grow up? When it was time for him to answer, El-Abour gave a reply that thousands of children have said before. He wanted to be a baseball player. But his teacher shot back with something less than encouraging: “You’d better have a Plan B.” El-Abour, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, remained undeterred. Rather than listening to his pessimistic instructor, he distanced himself from her.He thought that if he continued to talk to her, she might convince him he was unable to achieve his goal. In the end, he was right, and the teacher was wrong. El-Abour grew up to become a baseball player after receiving a degree in business administration from Bristol University in California. He first played professionally in the Empire League, where he was named rookie of the year in 2016 and was an All-Star in 2017. Then, in 2018, he signed a deal with the Kansas City Royals, a franchise just three years removed from winning the World Series. He played outfield in the minor leagues during the 2018 season, flourishing under the mentorship of JD Nichols of World Wide Baseball Prospects and Reggie Sanders of the Royals, becoming the first recorded autistic player in MLB history.All of this will be news to the US health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who said earlier this month that: “Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children … These are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”El-Abour chooses to let Kennedy’s comments slide off him.“When it comes to politics,” the 32-year-old tells the Guardian, “I’m so used to crazy stuff being said by people. I’m just in a spot where it doesn’t really get to me. I get that’s just how some things are. The way I look at it, the only things I care about are the things I have control over – like baseball and those I care about most.”El-Abour, who is now playing in the Zone 22 scouting league in Los Angeles and hoping for another shot at the majors, says he doesn’t know what it’s like not to be autistic. But he explains that the way his brain works helps him focus and embrace repetition – both valuable qualities for a ballplayer. “Baseball requires a lot of repetition to be good at it,” he says. “And people with autism tend to be repetitive. I guess that’s maybe where it benefits me.”Kennedy, a fan of doing his own research, may want to note that El-Abour is not the only autistic professional athlete in the US. Tony Snell, who also has two autistic sons, was diagnosed with autism. And he had a nine-year NBA career, playing on several teams, including the Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Pelicans. “Learning I have [autism] helped me understand my whole life,” said Snell in a recent interview. “This is why I am the way I am.” Joe Barksdale, who revealed in 2022 that he was diagnosed with autism, played eight years in the NFL. And Nascar driver Armani Williams also stated publicly he is autistic. Of course, there are more autistic athletes coming up in the ranks, too.“It was a surprise when the [Kennedy] news came out last week,” El-Abour’s mother, Nadia, tells the Guardian. “I wanted to post something then Tarik said, ‘No, the [media] will take care of it.’ Tarik started laughing. He goes, ‘Oh, wow, why did he [Kennedy] choose baseball?’”She says that, unlike some politicians today, her son is very logical. Many autistic people, she explains, don’t attach emotion to the truth. Something simply either is true or it isn’t. “They can’t understand why we don’t accept the truth,” Nadia says. It’s the same reasoning El-Abour employed when flouting his middle school teacher’s “Plan B” idea. In fact, he bristled at it so much that he didn’t even want to be around the energy of the school building, often crossing the street rather than walk near it.“He doesn’t see obstacles,” Nadia says of her son. “He doesn’t think of ‘I can’t.’ He just thinks, ‘How … how can I do that?’”El-Abour, who was non-verbal until he was about six years old, started playing baseball later in life, around 10 years old. At first, he was unsure if he liked the game, which his father signed him up for. But when he got into the batter’s box, something happened. He even gave up his spot as pitcher on the team because he was told pitchers don’t bat in the pros. From then on, he arranged his whole life around things that would make him be a better player. He painted an X on the garage to practice his throwing accuracy. He took fly balls into the night with his coaches. Rather than, as Kennedy would have us believe, baseball was something unattainable for El-Abour, it helped him blossom.Indeed, El-Abour’s life is a far cry from the picture Kennedy Jr and others have tried to paint. But despite any number of ignorant comments, El-Abour says he’s grateful for who he is and proud of what he’s achieved so far in his life. He says “it’s an honor” that people ask him about his autism and he’s glad he can add to the conversation. “It’s very humbling,” El-Abour says, “to be possibly making an impact. Baseball really gave me something that I enjoy and love doing. It always gives me something to be motivated for and to be better at each day throughout my life. And that’s really good.” More

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      Zambia remove US-based players due to Trump immigration policy fears

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      The Zambia women’s national team have decided to remove their four US-based players from their squad for upcoming games due to concerns about the Trump administration’s immigration policy, the country’s football federation announced on Wednesday.The policies have created significant uncertainty for foreigners looking to leave or re-enter the United States after time abroad. In March, a French scientist was detained and his phone was searched upon arriving in Houston for a conference.Zambia are due to play Thailand and either China or Uzbekistan in China this week. Orlando Pride trio Barbra Banda, Prisca Chilufya and Grace Chanda will miss the games along with Bay FC’s Rachael Kundananji. Banda is Zambia’s captain and forms part of the team’s first-choice frontline alongside Kundananji.The Football Association of Zambia said in a statement that the decision was “owing to additional travel measures introduced by the new administration in the United States of America.” The statement goes on to say that withdrawing the players from the squad was done with the advice of the Zambian mission in Washington DC and both of the involved NWSL clubs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“After working through the process instigated by recently introduced measures it was decided that it is in the best interest of our players to skip this assignment,” the FAZ general secretary, Reuben Kamanga, said in a statement. “They will definitely be available for future assignments as they were for the last window when we played Malawi.”The Trump administration and Ice have withdrawn visas for several foreign nationals and deported numerous legal permanent residents for various reasons, including a history of criticizing Trump and suspicions of gang associations – though at least a few of those cases appear to have been made in error. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has also ordered a widespread review of visas and has boasted of canceling over 300.Trump is also engaged in a trade war with China – where Zambia are due to play, with the Chinese team a potential opponent. More

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      Article on Jackie Robinson’s military career restored to defense department website

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      An article detailing Jackie Robinson’s military career has been restored to the Department of Defense’s website amid a purge of material considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).Robinson, who Donald Trump last month described as helping “drive our country forward to greatness”, is widely considered a national hero in the US. He broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers; he went on to be elected to his sport’s Hall of Fame. Robinson also served in the US Army during the second world war. However, on Tuesday night ESPN’S Jeff Passan noted a page detailing Robinson’s army career had been taken down and “dei” added to the URL.On Wednesday, the page had been restored. Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said that “everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson”. He added that the defense department regularly checks for material than may have been removed in error.The initial removal was in step with similar decisions in recent weeks as the Pentagon works on the removal of any webpage it considers to be representative of DEI programs. The Trump administration has made its distaste for DEI clear and has rolled back many DEI programs across the federal government. One Trump executive order sought to end all “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities in the federal government” related to “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility’ (DEIA) programs”.Other pages to have been removed include one focusing on Ira Hayes, a Native American who was one of the marines pictured raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during the second world war. Articles about the Native American code talkers also appeared to have been removed from military websites.Defense department spokesperson Sean Parnell has defended the removals. “I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this – that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,” Parnell said.Robinson had a striking military career. After a successful battle to train as an officer, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943 and assigned to a tank regiment. However, in 1944 the driver of an army bus ordered Robinson to sit at the back, a directive Robinson refused. Robinson was court martialed and acquitted, then served as an athletics coach before being honorably discharged in November 1944.The removal of Robinson’s page seems to be at odds with comments by Trump himself, who last month said Robinson’s statue would be added to a garden of national heroes. Trump said at the time that Robinson was one of a number of “Black legends, champions, warriors and patriots who helped drive our country forward to greatness.” More

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      West Virginia governor attacks NCAA ‘robbery’ after WVU excluded from March Madness

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      West Virginia’s governor, Patrick Morrisey, said on Monday that the state will launch an investigation into the NCAA and the selection committee over how teams were picked for this year’s NCAA Tournament.His move comes a day after his state’s flagship school, West Virginia, was excluded from the tournament.Standing behind a podium emblazoned with a sign that read “National Corrupt Athletic Association,” Morrisey said West Virginia deserved a place in the tournament.“This is a miscarriage of justice and robbery at the highest level,” he said.Clearly knowledgeable about college basketball, Morrisey talked at length about factors such as Quad 1 victories, strength of schedule and NET rankings – among the metrics that the tournament committee supposedly uses in determining the teams.Debate raged on Monday morning after the North Carolina Tar Heels were awarded a spot in the field of 68 instead of the Mountaineers. UNC received a No 11 seed and will play fellow No 11 San Diego State in a First Four game on Tuesday.West Virginia finished the season with a 19-13 record (10-10 Big 12); the Tar Heels were 22-13 (13-7 Atlantic Coast Conference). However, when using the metric of Quad 1 wins, North Carolina were 1-12 and West Virginia 6-10.“We keep hearing about the importance of these Quad 1 wins, but UNC couldn’t even get more than one,” the Republican governor said. “They also had the 25th-toughest schedule in America, right behind WVU.”Morrisey said he has directed state attorney general JB McCuskey to work with the NCAA to find out just what criteria the selection committee uses in picking the teams. McCuskey said that knowledge can help teams to build rosters and decide the best use of their NIL funds.McCuskey also said that as the NCAA Tournament has evolved into a billion-dollar business, the selection process hasn’t kept up. An animated Morrisey also questioned what influence Bubba Cunningham, the chair of the selection committee, might have had over the process. Cunningham is the athletic director at North Carolina.“That’s being reported by a number of outlets that Cunningham had a significant bonus incentive, at least $70,000, for UNC making the tournament – arguably more if they advanced,” he said, adding the state’s investigation would look into whether “backroom deals, corruption, bribes or any nefarious activities occurred.”He added: “Any way you slice it, this thing reeks of corruption.”Morrisey has tangled with the NCAA before. In 2023, when he served as the state’s attorney general, he and a coalition of attorneys general in other states sued the NCAA over transfer eligibility and won.“Is this retribution? I don’t know. We’re going to have to get to the bottom of that,” he said.West Virginia declined to participate in the second-tier NIT.“I want to reiterate what I said on Sunday that I am incredibly proud of this team and what they accomplished this season,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said in a statement on Monday. “One of our team goals was making the NCAA Tournament and we had a resume worthy of an NCAA Tournament selection. Our guys poured their hearts into this season and all their collective efforts into making the NCAA tournament. I would like to thank all of Mountaineer Nation for their unwavering support of our team this season.”Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told ESPN he thought the selection committee made the wrong decision.“I was surprised and disappointed to see West Virginia not receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament,” Yormark said. “In addition to their six Quad 1 wins, the Mountaineers won 10 conference games in one of the toughest leagues in the country.” More

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      Charles Barkley calls athletes who won’t visit Trump’s White House ‘stupid’. I disagree | Etan Thomas

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      Since Donald Trump took office for his second term, he has taken a blowtorch to America. He has pardoned January 6 rioters, started the gutting of the federal government, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, insulted who we thought were the country’s allies, and vilified immigrants.While there have been voices of dissent in the sports world – such as former NFL punter Chris Kluwe and soccer coach Jesse Marsch – athletes have largely stayed silent on Trump’s policies, a stark contrast to his first term in power. In recent months, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce spoke of their pride in playing in front of Trump at the Super Bowl, while the Philadelphia Eagles are reportedly keen to visit the White House to celebrate their NFL title, a decision supported by Charles Barkley, who believes boycotts make the nation more divided.I couldn’t disagree more with Barkley. So I wanted to sit down with the epitome of the athlete activist, someone who didn’t hesitate to express his beliefs, even in the face of enormous backlash. And that is the great Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose protest during the national anthem in 1996 cost him his NBA career. Below is our conversation, which was has been lightly edited for length and clarity, about the importance of protest under the Trump administration.Etan Thomas: Do you think athletes have gone a little quiet since Trump has taken office? How important is it for athletes to not stay silent?Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf: It’s definitely not just athletes, but for the context of this discussion, we can focus on athletes. And, yes, it’s super important [for athletes to speak up]. I can’t help but think of years ago, J Edgar Hoover was discussing the power of the athlete. And how [the] goal was to shift [focus] from the Muhammad Ali types to the more quiet type of athlete because those in power recognize the power that athletes had to influence people. Especially an athlete that’s articulate and knows how to communicate and is current with all of the issues. So, there is an enormous amount of power that a lot of athletes … don’t realize that they have.ET: A lot of the reasoning given as to why athletes may be more reluctant to speak out now is because they are making so much more money and have much more to lose.MAR: Well, to whom much is given much is expected. Sometimes, people are quiet when they’re trying to get ahead in fear of messing up their chances to succeed, and I understand that. But when you get to a point where you are making millions and your finances are all taken care of, you would think that it would embolden you even more. But for so many of us, it makes it even worse … Sometimes, people listen to athletes more than they will academics who have studied the issues continuously.ET: Has the time of athlete activism passed? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once told me “if you have someone with that type of power and influence, pushing for something you don’t agree with, of course they are going to try to do whatever they can to silence them, because they are a threat to them.”MAR: Mr Abdul Jabbar was absolutely correct. So athletes having that power, have to prepare themselves for that responsibility. And if you want to improve on anything, you have to practice. We have to prepare ourselves just like we do on the basketball court. Just as we train, plan and strategize to overcome the opponent, exploit their weaknesses, capitalize on your strengths to win the game, that same strategic analysis has to be applied in real life. You can’t lose those lessons. It has to carry over. And let me add to that, the more athletes surround themselves with people who can influence them in a positive way, the better.ET: Like Muhammad Ali being mentored by Malcolm X.MAR: Exactly. Without the influence of Malcolm X, we may have only known Muhammad Ali as the greatest boxer of all time. And that would’ve been tragic. An athlete can be utilized as a mouthpiece to wake up the masses … because if an athlete says it, they pay more attention. It shouldn’t be that way of course, but a lot of times, that’s the reality. But honestly, the masses shouldn’t need anyone to point out what is clear and evident. It is amazing that a small cabal of people have convinced the masses to accept their oppression while they know they are being oppressed.ET: Like Trump getting so many people to vote against their own interests for a second time.MAR: Exactly, yes. So to answer your original question, it’s mandatory [for athletes to speak out against Trump]. Too much is at stake. I have conversations with different athletes all the time, just as I’m sure you do. Different races, ages, colors, coaches, administrators, everyone. But I also have conversations with different people of everyday life all the time; not just athletes, people from all races, backgrounds, owners of companies, people in the workforce. But so many people are afraid to make it public. They got us so fearful right now.ET: Almost like everyone is afraid to stand up to the school bully. The whole reason I wrote my book We Matter: Athletes And Activism is because I wanted to praise athletes like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant who were using their voices in Trump’s first term, despite the criticism and backlash, and showing younger athletes that they can follow suit.MAR: And they should look at those criticisms as a compliment. If the powers that be are speaking highly of you, in a system that doesn’t mean you or your people well, you should ask: “Why are they praising me?” Because they always have an angle. They are always trying to manipulate and conform to fit their agenda. But on the flip side, if they are going out of their way to tear you down, that means you are doing something right. The civil rights leader John Lewis talked about “good trouble”. Well, this is “good backlash”.ET: I like that. In your day, there was no social media. Nowadays, athletes don’t have to wait for a reporter or media outlet to interpret what their message is. They have the power to construct their own message, however they want to. But power unrecognized is just a waste.MAR: I wish we had social media back in the day. Being able to control your own narrative and get your own message out the way you want to is invaluable. And to add to that, now athletes have the ability to feel the support of the community through social media. So just as you can feel the backlash, you can also feel support. We didn’t have that when we were coming up. We kind of felt like we were on an island by ourselves because we only heard the media backlash. So, yes, social media plays a big difference in many ways.ET: Any final thoughts?MAR: OK, let me end it with this. If you’re really about human freedom and justice you have no choice but to speak up. With everything going on right now, it’s crucial for everyone to use whatever platform they have – not just athletes but everyone. I want to make that point clear. We can’t put this all on athletes even though we know and understand the level of influence athletes have. Silence is acceptance, compliance and ultimately agreement with the status quo. It was Huey P Newton who said: “I do not think life will change for the better without an assault on the establishment”. With the magnitude of where we are right now, remaining silent isn’t an option. Either you’re part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem. And that goes for everyone, not just athletes. More

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      Sports are an ideal home for Donald Trump’s singular brand of ego stroking

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      Donald Trump’s appearance at this year’s Daytona 500 was not subtle.Named the race’s grand marshal, the president buzzed the speedway from aboard Air Force One, dangling the world’s most advanced airliner above 150,000 Nascar fans the way a parent humors an infant with a spoonful of baby food. Later, from the backseat of the presidential limousine, AKA The Beast, he paced the 41-car field around the oval track before the race. The sight of that 20,000lb machine sticking to the track’s banked lanes at 70 mph blew away the crowd all over again. “This is your favorite president,” he told the drivers via their in-car radio system. “I’m a really big fan of you people. You’re talented people and great people and great Americans.” The shock and awe spectacle couldn’t have been more fitting of a man who has been taking the country for a ride since he entered public life more than 50 years ago.Plenty of other US presidents have used sports to further their agendas. Football wouldn’t be America’s game without rabid sportsman Teddy Roosevelt stepping in to save it from certain abolition at the turn of the 20th century. Former Texas Rangers owner George W Bush put American resilience on display after 9/11 with his on-the-money first pitch to kick off Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium. For nine straight years Barack Obama – a basketball superfan – made a spring rite of picking his March Madness bracket live on ESPN, turning those Baracketology sessions into the hoops equivalent of FDR’s fireside chats.While there’s no doubt that Trump is a genuine fan of some sports in the abstract, he doesn’t care as much about what sports can do for his country as he does what sports can do for him. Given his native New Yorker bona fides, you’d think he’d have staked out firm positions on the sports rivalries that dominate the city. But Trump’s only loyalty is to whoever’s running up front. After the Yankees won back-to-back World Series in the late 70s, Trump and team owner George Steinbrenner, baseball’s eternal autocrat, were inseparable. (Trump called “the Boss” his best friend.) When the Knicks became trendy in the 90s, Trump was courtside at Madison Square Garden between his future second wife Marla Maples and actor Elliott Gould. Trump made himself a fixture at the US Open for nearly four decades, less for the tennis than to be seen mingling with New York’s glitterati and Hollywood celebrities.The essence of fandom lies in the inevitable struggles in the path to glory. But Trump doesn’t do struggle or even concede defeat; that’s for the plebes, Jets and Mets junkies. He doesn’t indulge in true sports fandom. He engages, in the cold, tech bro-y sense of the word – for the branding opportunity. He leaves the Super Bowl before the end of the game and bails on the Daytona 500 after 11 laps – 189 short of the full distance. His only struggle is with the concept of fair-weather fandom. He’s all about the sure thing. The attitude is about par for a golfer whose reputation as a shameless cheat puts him in league with Kim Jong-il and other cult of personality authoritarians.Trump prefers nothing more than a “winner”. It’s why he touted quarterback Patrick Mahomes during the Kansas City Chiefs’ three-peat run, and NFL owner Bob Kraft when his New England Patriots were the league’s reigning dynasty; he praised Serena Williams in similar terms when she was at her most dominant on court. But you would be hard pressed to use the same word to describe Trump back when he was pursuing his own sports endeavors, before hopping on the politics bandwagon.In the 1980s and 90s Trump lured Mike Tyson and other heavyweights to his Atlantic City casino in a failed attempt to upstage the Las Vegas scene. His casinos ultimately went bankrupt, and Atlantic City fell into economic ruin. In 1983 he bought a franchise in the upstart United States Football League expressly to force a merger with the NFL only to wind up collapsing the younger league. In 2014, Trump came up a half-a-billion dollars short of buying the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. He has said that if he owned the team, he likely never would have run for president. You can drive yourself mad thinking of the pain and distress a crowdfunding campaign might have spared the world.But Trump’s loser history was mostly forgotten once he achieved power and began flexing it. And his strongman image has only benefited from his associations with self-proclaimed tough guys like UFC president Dana White, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former NFL star Herschel Walker – whom Trump recently appointed ambassador to the Bahamas. The past two months have seen Trump steal focus from the college football championship and the Super Bowl, which he mostly used as an excuse to troll Taylor Swift.The more he makes sports his bully pulpit, the more the actual protagonists in the arena feel compelled to kiss the ring. Ten months ago McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown was the one falling over himself while guiding then-candidate Trump on a VIP tour of the Miami Grand Prix. Earlier this month PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan implored Trump to moderate the merger negotiations between his circuit and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which would enrich the family business. “One doesn’t know if he is acting as president of the United States or simply as a businessman, in trying to promote this merger,” US representative Jamie Raskin told the Washington Post, nodding at the millions Trump has collected from both organizations through his golf properties.View image in fullscreenMost recently, Team USA general manager Bill Guerin beseeched the president to attend the NHL’s 4 Nations final between the US and Canada amid rising tension between the countries over trade tariffs. “We have a room full of proud American players and coaches and staff,” Guerin told Fox News. “And listen, we’re just trying to represent our country the best way we can.”But there’s good reason why Team USA ultimately had to settle for a phone call from the president whereas the Daytona 500 crowd got the full presidential parade: Nascar is a more influential crowd for Republican presidents. In 1984 Ronald Reagan became the first of four sitting presidents to attend the Great American Race, and every one since has been a Republican. George W Bush, who attended 12 years after his father, owes his two terms in office in large part to Nascar Dads trooping out to the polls. In 2006 vice-president Dick Cheney did a flyover in Air Force Two before taking a lap around the track in his motorcade, setting the template for Trump’s grand entrance this year.At the last Daytona 500 I covered in 2017, weeks after Trump was sworn in for his first term, Trump-Pence campaign signs, bumper stickers and flags proliferated in the Daytona infield. Three years later he turned up for his first stint as race grand marshal. That’s a lot of attention by proximity for a sports league that’s fallen in popularity from its Bush-era peak. But you wonder if everyone inside Nascar corporate is totally comfortable with it.Nascar, after all, has spent the better part of the past 30 years trying to convince the public that it is a diverse, equitable and inclusive sport in spite of its homogeneous presentation and good ol’ boy heritage in the deep south. When Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only Black Cup series driver, called on the sport’s governing body to ban displays of the confederate flag, he was inundated with abuse and death threats. But since Nascar acquiesced to his demand in 2020, over Trump’s forceful objections, the sport has kept pushing toward progress.Michael Jordan and Pitbull have joined Nascar as team owners. Kyle Larson, the sport’s only driver of Asian descent, cruised to the 2021 Cup championship in what was a victory for Drive for Diversity – the quarter-century old Nascar program tasked with bringing more women and minorities into the sport. (Never mind if Larson hadn’t exactly helped racial progress by getting suspended for most of the 2020 season after using the N-word on a live stream.) It’s not hard to imagine Trump taking aim at Drive for Diversity if he detects the slightest hint of disloyalty from Nascar. With Trump literally leading the bandwagon, what else can Nascar do but follow dutifully behind?But playing ball with Trump comes at a cost, especially now that he’s the president again – even if the leagues themselves don’t pick up the tab. The Super Bowl trip to New Orleans is estimated to have set taxpayers back at least $1m. His Daytona 500 drop-in could cost 10 times as much. Some X users, doing the quick math on Air Force One’s hourly operation rate, reckon that $25,000 alone was burned on jet fuel when Air Force One buzzed the speedway. Between the lavish engagements at sporting events and the millions he pocketed from playing golf at his own courses, it’s a wonder anyone believes him when he talks about cracking down on government waste and fraud.Authenticity has always been a prime selling point of sports, but that’s not why Trump’s in the game. For him, sports are just another venue for his singular brand of ego stroking. Wherever the lights are brightest, you can bet Trump will find some way to make a spectacle of himself. More

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      Trump is using the presidency to seek golf deals – hardly anyone’s paying attention | Mohamad Bazzi

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      In his first month in office, Donald Trump destroyed federal agencies, fired thousands of government workers and unleashed dozens of executive orders. The US president also found time to try to broker an agreement between two rival golf tournaments, the US-based PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league, funded by Saudi Arabia.If concluded, the deal would directly benefit Trump’s family business, which owns and manages golf courses around the world. And it would be the latest example of Trump using the presidency to advance his personal interests.On 20 February, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House between Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, chair of LIV Golf and head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, along with the golf star Tiger Woods. It was the second meeting convened by Trump at the White House this month with PGA Tour officials involved in negotiating with the Saudi wealth fund. A day before his latest attempt at high-level golf diplomacy, Trump travelled to Miami to speak at a conference organized by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is managed by Al-Rumayyan but ultimately controlled by the kingdom’s de facto ruler and crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.Trump’s sports diplomacy in the Oval Office and cozying up to Saudi investors in Miami did not get much attention compared with his whirlwind of executive orders and new policies. But these incidents encapsulate Trump’s transactional and corrupt approach to governing – and the ways that wealthy autocrats including Prince Mohammed will be able to exploit the US president. While Trump will often boast he is making good deals for the US, his relationship with Saudi Arabia and its crown prince is largely built on benefits for Trump’s family and its extensive business interests.During Trump’s first term, the Trump Organization had dealings with Saudi Arabia that posed a potential conflict of interest for the president, especially after Saudi government lobbyists spent more than $270,000 on rooms at the Trump International hotel in downtown Washington. Now with no guardrails from Congress or the courts, the Trump family business is plowing ahead with new agreements that could reap tens of millions of dollars in profit from Saudi-linked real estate and golf ventures.In December, a month after Trump was elected to a second term, the Trump Organization announced several real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, including a Trump Tower in the capital, Riyadh, and another $530m residential tower in the city of Jeddah. The projects are branding deals for Trump’s family business with Dar Global, an international subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan, one of the largest real estate companies in Saudi Arabia. While Dar Al Arkan is a private company, it relies on large Saudi government contracts and the crown prince’s goodwill.After a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, the Trump Organization lost a series of real estate partnerships and other deals in the US. During Trump’s years out of power, Saudi Arabia became one of the few consistent sources of new deals and growth for the Trump brand, which was considered toxic by many US customers and businesses. Aside from real estate branding agreements with Saudi companies, Trump convinced the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV professional golf tour at several of his golf courses, including those in Washington, Miami and Bedminster, New Jersey. After the assault on the Capitol, the PGA of America, which is a separate organization from the PGA Tour and runs one of golf’s most important tournaments, the PGA Championship, cancelled a 2022 tournament at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. The LIV Golf tournaments brought Trump’s properties back into the professional golfing circuit and provided millions of dollars in revenue for the Trump family business.In November 2022, as Trump was preparing to announce his presidential campaign, the Trump Organization finalized a deal with Dar Al Arkan and the government of Oman to be part of a multibillion-dollar real estate development in Oman. While the Trump Organization is not expected to contribute funds toward the project’s development, it will earn millions of dollars in licensing fees for a Trump-branded hotel and golf course – and will be paid millions more in management fees for up to 30 years. The project raised concerns that if Trump was re-elected, he would violate the US constitution’s emoluments clause by profiting from being in a partnership with the government of Oman, a longtime US ally, and a real estate firm with close ties to the Saudi government. (A report released by Democrats in Congress last year found that Trump’s businesses had received $7.8m from at least 20 foreign governments during his first term as president.)As Saudi Arabia helped keep Trump’s family business afloat after the Capitol insurrection, it provided even more crucial support to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser during the first Trump administration. Six months after Kushner left the White House in 2021, his newly created firm, Affinity Partners, secured a $2bn investment from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Prince Mohammed overruled a panel of advisers who had recommended against investing in Kushner’s company, citing its lack of experience and track record in private equity. The advisers warned that due diligence had found the firm’s early operations “unsatisfactory in all aspects”, but internal documents leaked to the New York Times showed that the prince and his aides were more concerned with using the investment as part of a “strategic relationship” with Kushner.Why was Prince Mohammed so eager to invest in Trump and Kushner’s businesses, even when they were out of power? The prince was betting on a second Trump term – and he was rewarding Trump’s steadfast support throughout his presidency. The Trump administration helped Prince Mohammed survive a severe challenge to his rule: fallout from the assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who suffocated the Saudi journalist and dismembered his body with a bone saw.As the international outcry over Khashoggi’s killing intensified and members of Congress demanded sanctions against Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials, Trump and Kushner never wavered in their support for the prince and his regime. While Saudi officials at first tried to claim that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, the crown prince eventually blamed rogue operatives for the assassination. But a US intelligence report, which Trump refused to release, found that Prince Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s killing.The president later made sure to remind Prince Mohammed that he owed Trump for defending him after Khashoggi’s assassination. In interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward in early 2020, Trump boasted: “I saved his ass”– meaning he protected the crown prince from a backlash in Congress. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone,” Trump told Woodward. “I was able to get them to stop.”Today, the president is trying to reap more benefits based on his protection of Prince Mohammed – beyond what Kushner and the Trump Organization have already amassed from Saudi investments during Trump’s time out of office. Trump is corrupting the presidency by using it to negotiate international golf agreements and other deals that will ultimately enrich his family – and hardly anyone is objecting.

      Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University More