The Philadelphia Eagles celebrated their recent Super Bowl championship with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, though at least two dozen players – including Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts – did not attend.
During a brief ceremony on the South Lawn, Trump lauded the Eagles for a dominant season, which they capped with a 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. He also praised the team’s famed ‘tush push’ play, which some NFL teams are now seeking to ban, and praised running back Saquon Barkley as ‘a handsome guy’ whom he wouldn’t want to tackle.
‘I was with the (New York) Giants, the head coach and some people, and I said, ‘Do anything you have to, but don’t lose Saquon.’ They lost Saquon,’ Trump said to laughter from the crowd. ‘That was not good. I called that one. That was an easy one to call.’
Trump also noted his presence at the Super Bowl, which was rare for a sitting president. And he appeared to take a jab at pop star Taylor Swift, who was also in attendance to support her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
‘I was there along with Taylor Swift. How did that work out? How did that one work out?’ Trump said of Swift.
The ceremonial visit came nearly seven years after the team’s public spat with Trump during his first term in office. The president abruptly disinvited the Eagles on the eve of their planned trip after their first Super Bowl title in 2018, amid reports that they were planning to bring only a small contingent of players to the White House. Trump’s press secretary at the time, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, publicly ripped the team for what she deemed ‘a political stunt.’
Given the previous acrimony between Trump and the Eagles, there were questions about whether Monday’s trip to the White House would happen – or whether the president would even invite the team to visit in the first place. Trump extended an invitation last month, after the team publicly signaled it would accept one if offered.
‘We just felt that this is a time-honored tradition, being invited by the White House,’ Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie told reporters at the NFL owners’ meeting earlier this month. ‘There was no reticence whatsoever. To be celebrated at the White House is a good thing. There were special circumstances back then (in 2018) that were very different.’
Lurie added that ‘it is totally an optional thing’ and would be left up to each player and coach to decide if they wanted to attend. That decision seemed to be easier for some players than others.
Which Eagles players didn’t go to the White House?
Hurts and wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were among the key players absent from the ceremony. A White House official told USA TODAY that Hurts would be among those not in attendance due to a ‘scheduling conflict.’ When asked by a reporter last week if he would join the team in visiting Trump, Hurts said ‘umm’ and did not otherwise respond.
Ultimately, 54 members of the Eagles’ organization attended the ceremony, including Lurie, general manager Howie Roseman head coach Nick Sirianni and several assistant coaches and support staffers like chief security officer Dom DiSandro, who also got a mention from Trump. Barkley, offensive lineman Lane Johnson and safety Reed Blankenship were among the players in attendance.
Barkley had spent time with Trump at his company’s golf club in New Jersey one day earlier, even traveling to Washington with Trump on Air Force One later in the day. The running back responded to critics on X, formerly known as Twitter, by noting that he had also played golf with former president Barack Obama, who is a Democrat. ‘Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand,’ Barkley wrote.
Eagles are rare NFL team to visit Trump White House
The act of celebrating a championship at the White House has become increasingly thorny under Trump, who has repeatedly used the world of sports as a battleground for cultural issues. During his first term, sports teams’ visits were more sporadic than under past administrations, with several championship teams in the NBA and women’s sports leagues either not invited or declining to attend.
So far during his second term, Trump has already hosted several teams, including the NHL’s Florida Panthers and MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers. But the athletes who have chosen to visit the White House have also faced public criticism – claims that their attendance is a tacit endorsement of Trump’s presidency, which has been mired in controversies.
The Dodgers’ visit, for example, came after the Trump administration had scraped references to legendary former Dodger Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in MLB, from a government website as part of a broader initiative to eliminate references to diversity, equity and inclusion. (The page was later restored after public backlash.) Mookie Betts, the lone Black player on the team, decided to visit the White House after skipping a past visit under Trump in 2019.
‘I just think the politics of today are so polarized that whatever you do, you’re going to be perceived to be supporting a political platform or a position,’ historian Frank Guridy said earlier this year.
The Eagles are just the second NFL team to visit the White House under Trump, who spent part of his first term criticizing the league and some of its players for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality. The 2017 New England Patriots are the only other NFL team to have visited Trump’s White House.
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tomschad.bsky.social.