President Donald Trump cancels Eagles’ White House celebration a day before the visit

A small contingent from the Philadelphia Eagles was scheduled to visit the White House to celebrate the team’s Super Bowl victory, but President Donald Trump canceled the visit Monday.

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow,” Trump said in a statement. “They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the national anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country. The Eagles wanted to send a small delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better. These fans are still invited to the White House to be part of a different type of ceremony — one that will honor our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play the national anthem. I will be there at 3 p.m. with the United States Marine Band and the United States Army Chorus to celebrate America.”

On Thursday, the White House released another statement:

It reads, in part:

On Thursday, May 31, the team notified the White House of 81 individuals, including players, coaches, management, and support personnel, who would attend the event. On Friday, the Secret Service cleared them for participation. These individuals, along with more than 1,000 Eagles fans, were scheduled to attend the event

Late Friday, citing the fact that many players would not be in attendance, the team contacted the White House again, and attempted to reschedule the event. The president, however, had already announced that he would be traveling overseas on the dates the Eagles proposed. The White House, despite sensing a lack of good faith, nonetheless attempted to work with the Eagles over the weekend to change the event format that could accommodate a smaller group of players. Unfortunately, the Eagles offered to send only a tiny handful of representatives, while making clear that the great majority of players would not attend the event, despite planning to be in D.C. today. In other words, the vast majority of the Eagles team decided to abandon their fans.

A “list of 81 individuals” may have been a case where the Eagles cleared the entire roster to give them the option to attend or not. But the group that was reportedly ready to go was down to just two or three players, team owner Jeffrey Lurie, and the mascot.

The team still intends to do community service events in Washington, but will now do so at a later date.

Trump — who has previously flubbed the words to the anthem and needed to be reminded by the First Lady to put his hand over his heart — has followed this playbook before. A year ago, he uninvited Stephen Curry of the NBA-champion Golden State Warriors after Curry already said he wouldn’t attend. The rest of the Warriors opted not to make the trip either. On Tuesday, LeBron James and Curry both said they don’t expect this year’s NBA champs to visit the White House.

While quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Nick Foles each said that they planned to join players in attending the White House, some prominent players — Malcolm Jenkins, Chris Long, and Torrey Smith — all publicly said they’d skip the event.

Trump’s thoughts on the national anthem weren’t necessarily the only reason players weren’t planning to attend. The new anthem policy wasn’t even a topic among the players, according to Long, and no Eagles players kneeled during the anthem in 2017.

Jenkins talked about “changes in our criminal justice system,” Smith said Trump has “no respect for women,” and Long called the visit “a photo op.” Most Eagles players hadn’t said whether or not they’d attend.

Jenkins released a statement Tuesday that said the White House “made the decision to lie, and paint the picture that these players are anti-America, anti-flag and anti-military.”

Smith, who now plays for the Panthers, tweeted that Trump’s statement included “so many lies.” He added:

Smith — like Jenkins — pointed out that no Eagles players even kneeled during the anthem during the 2017 season. Both Long and Zach Ertz also railed against Fox News for using photographs of players praying and trying to misrepresent them as protesting. Fox News later apologized.

The NFLPA said it was “disappointed” with the disinvite.

“This decision by the White House has led to the cancellation of several player-led community service events for young people in the Washington, D.C. area,” its statement read. “NFL players love their country, support our troops, give back to their communities and strive to make America a better place.”

A year ago, just half of the Patriots’ 68 players attended the White House in 2017. The group that did plan to go for the Eagles was reportedly a small one:

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that “a large group of Eagles players had decided not to attend, including most — if not all — of the black players.”

The Eagles released a statement Monday night that made no mention of the canceled visit:

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie grabbed headlines in April when he reportedly told other owners behind closed doors that Trump was leading “one disastrous presidency.”

Trump has often used the controversy stirred by protests during the national anthem inspired by Colin Kaepernick for political gains. In a deposition earlier this year, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones reportedly said Trump told him it’s “a very winning, strong issue for me” and that it “lifts me.”

Getting ahead of Trump’s attempts to use the NFL as political leverage was a large part of the reason why a new national anthem policy was passed in May.

“I honestly believe that had we done nothing that the anthem protest would have subsided on its own,’’ an NFL owner told SB Nation’s Thomas George. “But the risk of giving Trump another football to kick was too great. A lot of his fan base is our fan base.”

But Trump showed Monday that he’s still plenty capable of leveraging the opinions and social activism of NFL players into political opportunity.