As has been the trend among liberal athletes, a Washington Nationals relief pitcher won’t visit the White House with his teammates because of his disdain for President Donald Trump.
Sean Doolittle had previously remained silent on whether he would visit the White House upon winning the World Series when the prospect was merely a hypothetical. But now that the Nationals have won the title, Doolittle told The Washington Post that he would not visit the president of the United States.
“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country,” Doolittle told the Post. It is unclear whether Doolittle would decline an invite from a Democratic president, who could just as easily be accused of “widening the divide in this country.”
“My wife and I stand for inclusion and acceptance, and we’ve done work with refugees, people that come from, you know, the ‘s—hole countries,’” he added.
Trump’s rhetoric on refugees was about how we needed to be sure who they were before we let them into our country, as many could be terrorists posing as refugees.
Doolittle also said he feels “very strongly about [Trump’s] issues on race relations” and the LGBT community. Doolittle’s wife “has two mothers who are very involved with the LGBTQ community,” the Post reported.
Trump is the first president to enter office supporting same-sex marriage, yet he has been painted as anti-LGBT. The claims are typically due to his picking Mike Pence as vice president. Pence is religious and believes in religious liberty, which is often at odds with LGBT beliefs. The Left paints religious people as hateful for their religious views.
Doolittle also criticized Trump for mocking a reporter who was disabled, saying he has an autistic family member.
“I have a brother-in-law who has autism, and [Trump] is a guy that mocked a disabled reporter. How would I explain that to him that I hung out with somebody who mocked the way that he talked, or the way that he moves his hands? I can’t get past that stuff,” Doolittle told the Post.
Doolittle was referencing Trump’s alleged mocking of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has difficulty moving his right arm and hand due to arthrogryposis. Liberal media outlets have maintained that video of Trump mocking Kovaleski shows him mocking the reporter’s disability. Investor’s Business Daily reported that this is how Trump mocks “the mannerisms of people, including himself, who are rattled and exasperated.” Previous videos of Trump show this. As IBD also reported, it didn’t make sense for Trump to mock a man with limited movement by thrashing his arms wildly. Yet the anti-Trump myth persists.
So far no other Nationals player has said they would not attend the White House event honoring their win. Doolittle responded to those who disagreed with his decision not to attend.
“People say you should go because it’s about respecting the office of the president and I think over the course of his time in office he’s done a lot of things that maybe don’t respect the office,” he said. “I don’t want to hang out with somebody who talks like that.”