Washington
CNN
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The go to by the Tremendous Bowl-champion Kansas Metropolis Chiefs to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Friday carries an underlying degree of pressure not usually felt at championship celebrations on the White Home.
It’s been just a few weeks since Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker criticized President Joe Biden, who’s Catholic, and different unnamed Catholic leaders for “pushing harmful gender ideologies onto the youth of America” — an obvious reference to transgender rights. His graduation deal with at Benedictine Faculty additionally contained quite a few different controversial statements, similar to swipes at LGBTQ individuals, calling Satisfaction Month a “lethal sin,” bemoaning range and fairness initiatives and suggesting girls discover extra achievement from getting married and having kids than from their careers.
“I need to converse on to you briefly as a result of I feel it’s you, the ladies, who’ve had probably the most diabolical lies informed to you,” mentioned Butker, who can also be Catholic, in the course of the speech.
“What number of of you might be sitting right here now about to cross this stage and are interested by all of the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your profession? A few of you might go on to guide profitable careers on the planet, however I’d enterprise to guess that almost all of you might be most enthusiastic about your marriage and the kids you’ll deliver into this world.”
Butker additionally praised his spouse, Isabelle, saying she “could be the primary to say her life really began when she started dwelling her vocation as a spouse and as a mom.”
His criticism of Biden and the swirling controversy round Butker after the speech went viral led to hypothesis that the kicker — who wore a tie with an anti-abortion phrase on it to the White Home final 12 months when the Chiefs final visited to have fun a Tremendous Bowl win — would skip the go to this 12 months.
At this level, he’s anticipated to attend. When requested if Butker will come to the White Home with the remainder of the staff, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid informed reporters final week, “Oh, I’m positive he’ll, yeah.”
It might arrange an ungainly second if the president and the kicker work together. Requested throughout a press briefing earlier this month if the White Home anticipated Butker to attend festivities at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to weigh in on the scenario.
“Truthfully, what I can say is we invite your entire staff and we try this at all times – I don’t have something past that,” she informed reporters. “We invite the staff, it’s an invite that goes to the staff, and so it’s as much as the staff who comes and who doesn’t.”
Since his speech, a few of Butker’s high-profile teammates have distanced themselves from his opinions at the same time as they are saying they embrace the three-time Tremendous Bowl champion as an individual. Star tight finish Travis Kelce said last week that he doesn’t agree with any of what Butker mentioned however he nonetheless feels that the kicker “is each little bit of an incredible individual and an incredible teammate.” Quarterback Patrick Mahomes told reporters that Butker was a “good individual,” regardless of “not essentially agreeing” along with his feedback.
The NFL has distanced itself from Butker’s feedback, saying via a spokesperson that his views are “not these of the NFL as a company.”
Butker, for his half, is not backing down from his comments and the following controversy.
“If it wasn’t clear that the timeless Catholic values are hated by many, it’s now,” Butker mentioned throughout a speech on the Braveness Beneath Fireplace gala in Nashville on Friday night time, which was hosted by Regina Caeli Academy.
Whereas Butker’s attendance is anticipated at this level, there’s one high-profile Chiefs fan whose presence shouldn’t be anticipated at this level.
Taylor Swift, the worldwide famous person who’s relationship Kelce, isn’t anticipated on the White Home on Friday as a result of she’s in Europe on her long-running Eras Tour. Swift performed a present in Madrid on Thursday night time earlier than the go to, and is touring on to Lyon, France, later within the weekend.
The go to caps off a very high-profile season for the Chiefs after Swift and Kelce went public with their relationship early within the season. It resulted in an accomplishment that hadn’t been performed in twenty years by an NFL staff — a back-to-back Tremendous Bowl championship, the fourth in Chiefs historical past and the third within the final 5 years.
The celebrations in Kansas Metropolis have been tragically temporary. On February 14, one individual was killed and 20 others have been injured in a mass shooting that occurred simply moments after the celebratory parade and pep rally had wrapped. Two males have been charged with homicide within the taking pictures, which began after a confrontation between two teams of individuals and was not linked to terrorism.
It was a violent and unhappy finish to what had been a historic season on the sector.
Kelce, who had already racked up a storied profession that can seemingly ship him to the Corridor of Fame when he finally follows his brother Jason into retirement, turned a celeb outdoors the world of soccer due to his relationship with Swift. Whereas his efficiency on the sector dropped off as in comparison with his unimaginable 2022 season, he nonetheless performed effectively sufficient to be rewarded with a contract extension that made him the best paid tight finish within the league.
For his quarterback, Mahomes, the victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas cemented the Texas Tech alum as one of many best quarterbacks within the sport’s historical past, though he’s simply six years into his profession and isn’t but 30 years outdated.
He mentioned final 12 months’s go to to the Oval Workplace was one of many highlights of his profession.
“I imply, I’ve by no means been to Washington, DC – I’ve by no means even obtained to see from the surface, seeing the White Home or any of the monuments or memorials,” Mahomes informed reporters on the time. “And so, to have the ability to be right here and see that, and see the historical past of this nice nation that we’ve got, it was actually cool for me to only be right here and be within the second, and I don’t suppose I might ever actually think about it being as cool because it was.”
CNN’s Donald Judd, AJ Willingham, Matias Grez and Keith Allen contributed to this report.