On Friday, Matt Schlapp, chair of the Conservative Political Action Conference, stated that athletes should not be faulted for expressing political views.
“Free speech rights apply whether teams or individuals choose to participate in White House events or decline to do so,” he said. “If an athlete doesn’t want to go to the White House, guess what? They have free speech rights, too.”
The remarks followed controversy over the 2026 men’s Olympic gold medal hockey team attending Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Schlapp acknowledged the optics when a team declines but argued that politics has seeped into sports: “When a team doesn’t come, I think that’s when we’re getting to this point where we’ve allowed this disgusting poisoning of our politics to get into our pastimes.”
He also emphasized that athletes bring personal beliefs with them.
Symone Sanders, who worked for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and later served as a senior adviser and chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris, criticized the players for visiting the White House. Sanders described them as “political props” and stated they “allowed themselves to be used as political props.”
Hilary Knight, captain of the women’s hockey team, condemned President Trump’s remarks about inviting the women’s team to the White House. The president had joked during a call that he would also invite the women’s team, an observation captured on video and widely shared. Knight called it “distasteful” and said the men’s team was “in a tough spot.” She added, “I think this is just a really good learning point to really focus on how we talk about women.”
Trump invited the men’s Olympic hockey team to the State of the Union address. Knight noted that the president’s comment had been criticized for diminishing the women’s achievements.
Schlapp maintained that the healthiest outcome is to keep civic rituals without turning them into tests of loyalty, asserting athletes “got every right” to their views while teams should “show up and do the PR.”
