On Thursday, U.S. women’s soccer team player Ali Krieger bashed President Trump, telling CNN’s Alysin Camerota that Trump was “kind of an abuser” while at the same time lauding Barack Obama for tweeting praise at the team. Camerota also brought up Krieger’s tweet attacking the president after he targeted Krieger’s teammate Megan Rapinoe when Rapinoe had stated she would not go to the “f***ing White House.” Krieger had tweeted, “I know women who you can’t control or grope anger you, but I stand by @mPinoe & will sit this one out as well. I don’t support this administration nor this fight against LGBTQ+ citizens, immigrants & our most vulnerable.”
Trump had tweeted, “I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women’s Soccer, but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job! We haven’t yet invited Megan or the team, but I am now inviting the TEAM, win or lose. Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team. Be proud of the Flag that you wear. The USA is doing GREAT!”
Camerota prompted the exchange by asking, “Has President Trump called or tweeted to congratulate you guys yet?”
Krieger answered, “I honestly, after I tweeted about that incident — I haven’t really been on Twitter and focused on him at all, and so I have no idea. More importantly, Barack Obama tweeted at us, which I definitely liked, so I saw that one, and I was really excited about that, and we all were as well.”
Camerota pressed:
Speaking of what you put on Twitter, let me ask you about that. You tweeted at the president after the president had tweeted about Megan Rapinoe, basically saying that she should “win before she talks,” he didn’t like what she was saying sort of about some of her means of protest. So then you tweeted, “In regards to the ‘President’s’ tweet today, I know women who you can’t control or grope anger you, but I stand by @mPinoe & will sit this one out as well. I don’t support this administration nor this fight against LGBTQ+ citizens, immigrants & our most vulnerable.” So when you say “sit this one out,” you meant that you would not go to the White House if invited?
Krieger then launched into her attack on Trump:
No, absolutely not. I refuse to respect the man that warrants no respect. You know, I feel like staying silent at times can side with the oppressor, and I didn’t want her to feel that she was having to process this all alone, because a lot of us do have those similar feelings and I wanted to make sure, as one of her close friends, that she didn’t feel that. And I feel like we are able to focus, as women, imagine that, it’s funny, we can multitask on two things at once. And I think that it doesn’t take a lot of mind space to go ahead and tweet something out that’s very important and then just refocus, turn it off and refocus on the job and what we are doing here, which is to win. So I refuse to just sit back and watch kind of an abuser, a bully talk like that to my friend. You know, I support her as a friend and I wanted to make sure that I said something that meant something to me and was important to me. Yeah, that’s why I did what I did.
Camerota then cited leftist Congresswomen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ayanna Presley (D-MA) issuing invitations to the women’s soccer team to visit the House of Representatives. She asked, “So do you, I mean, I know how you feel, you’ve been quite clear, Megan Rapinoe has as well, do you think that your whole team would rather accept an invitation from Congress and go to the House of Representatives than the White House?”
Krieger answered, “Absolutely. Yes. I could say after this game we could pack our bags and be on our way. But that’s obviously not my choice, so we’d have to regroup and see what happens.”
Video below: