Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is hitting President Trump for hosting “military singalongs” in place of the canceled Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl celebration at the White House.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kerr mocked the president for appearing to only sing part of “God Bless America” during the “Celebration of America” event.
According to The Washington Post, Kerr said he found the image ironic, calling Eagles players who do community service more patriotic than the commander in chief.
{mosads}”When you read about their good deeds in their communities — Malcolm Jenkins addressing lawmakers, really trying to get to the root of some of the issues that we have — and instead we just have these military singalongs at the White House to show how patriotic we are — even though we don’t know the words,” Kerr said.
Kerr used the WNBA champions, the Minnesota Lynx, as another example of athletes showing their patriotism through work in the community.
After not receiving an invite to the White House, the Lynx spent a day in Washington, D.C., with students from Payne Elementary, a school where 100 percent of the students fall under “low income status.”
“The president is turning all of this stuff into a political game and a ratings game and it’s a blatant display of nationalism,” Kerr said. He later added that he’s proud of the athletes who haven’t given into the political game and are just doing “good deeds because that’s what it takes.”
Kerr is a frequent critic of Trump. On Tuesday, he responded to the Eagles being disinvited from the White House by saying: “It will be nice when things get back to normal in three years.” He also said last month that the NFL’s new national anthem policy was “fake patriotism.”
Both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors have said that the winner of the NBA Finals will not visit the White House if invited.