WASHINGTON—President Joe Biden hosted the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on May 31 amid controversy surrounding the team’s kicker.
President Biden welcomed the team “back” and praised the team for overcoming adversity—apparently referring to the Chiefs winning four of their last eight games of the 2023–2024 season. However, they ended up clinching their division.
He remarked that “a powerful lesson about sports” in the United States is that Americans do not give up.
The Chiefs gifted the president a team helmet, which he tried on.
While the focus was on the Chiefs—who defeated the San Fransisco 49ers in overtime in Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11 to win their third Super Bowl in five years—it comes following two controversies.
Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker made a controversial speech at a Catholic college and former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying documents related to a payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
The remarks also come just hours after President Biden called for an end to the war between Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.
The president outlined a three-pronged proposal Israel sent to Hamas via Qatar that would lead to the end of the conflict that started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Regarding President Trump’s conviction, President Biden said: “I stand by what the jury has concluded” and that “the jury system works and we have to abide by it.”
Addressing Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, on May 11, Mr. Butker, 28, criticized President Joe Biden’s abortion stance and the stigma behind women being stay-at-home moms.
When asked on May 16 about those remarks, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not directly address them, however, she said that President Biden is unapologetic regarding the issue of abortion.
When it comes to women, Mr. Butker said that there is nothing wrong with women pursuing a career or being a homemaker like his wife, Isabelle Butker.
Mr. Butker called on the males in the audience to embrace masculinity and not be absent from their households, citing the issue of fatherlessness in the United States.
The Chiefs’ superstar quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, and legendary head coach, Andy Reid, have defended Mr. Butker.
For those wondering, superstar singer Taylor Swift, who is dating Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce, was not in attendance at the White House.
President Biden called Mr. Kelce to the podium where he joked that he was told if he “came up here I'd get Tased.” He immediately returned to where he stood when President Biden gave his remarks.
