Trump Slammed Over 'Inexcusable' Team USA Women's Hockey Joke After Olympic Gold Win
President Donald Trump is facing criticism after he joked with the Olympic podium-topping US men’s ice hockey team about having to invite the gold medal-winning American women’s squad to the White House as well.
In a congratulatory phone call with the US men, who took gold at the Winter Olympics for the first time in 46 years, Trump suggested using military aircraft to fly the team out to his State of the Union address on Tuesday before sharing a “very cool” pitch for the team to visit the White House the following day.
“And we have to — I must tell you — we’re going to have to bring the women’s team,” said Trump, who went on to chuckle as the American men burst into laughter in a clip circulating on social media.
He added, “[If I don’t] do that, I do believe I probably would be impeached, OK?”
The clip shows FBI Director Kash Patel, who is facing backlash of his own for guzzling beers with the US men on a reportedly taxpayer-funded trip to Italy, holding the phone as Trump speaks to the team and telling the president in a slurred voice that he can arrange such a visit.
Both the US men and women went undefeated in group stage play at the Winter Olympics and made it through the playoffs before securing gold by defeating the rival Canadians in overtime, by the same score (2-1).
The win for the American women marked their third gold since the Olympic sport’s introduction back in 1998.
A spokesperson for Team USA told NBC News that the White House invited the women’s team to the State Of The Union address and, while they are “sincerely grateful” for the invitation, the players are unable to attend “due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.”
It remains unclear whether members of the men’s squad will make it out to the SOTU address on Tuesday, and if members of either team have committed to visiting the White House the next day or in the future.
HuffPost has reached out to the White House and USA Hockey for comment.
Social media users slammed Trump over his joke, including activist Shannon Watts, who denounced the president on X for “begrudgingly” extending the invite to the gold medal-winning women. She slammed the men’s team for laughing along.
Critics on X called the men in the video “spineless” and characterised the clip as “dispiriting” and “inexcusable.”
One top comment on Reddit described the joke as “absolutely shameful.”
“I wish I was surprised… but god it still turns my stomach knowing I was cheering for them just yesterday,” the commenter wrote of the men’s team.
Others in the Reddit thread expressed their disappointment with brothers Quinn and Jack Hughes, the latter of whom scored the golden goal for the US men on Sunday, for appearing to laugh at the joke.
The siblings’ mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, played for the US women’s team in the early ’90s and worked as a player development consultant for the squad in Milan.
Trump’s proposed date for Team USA’s White House visit — Wednesday — notably conflicts with the date that the National Hockey League season is set to resume play following an extended break due to the Winter Olympics.
Professional Women’s Hockey League players are also set to return to the ice on Thursday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday he was looking into the logistics of a potential DC visit by the teams.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic that it’s up to the men’s players to decide whether they’d accept such invitations on an individual basis and, thereafter, their teams would have to sign off on such a visit.