Jalen Hurts and other Eagles are not attending White House celebration with Donald Trump
Hurts had been noncommittal about joining his Eagles teammates at a White House celebration of their Super Bowl victory.
Jalen Hurts won’t be visiting the White House after all.
The Eagles star won’t join his teammates when they celebrate their Super Bowl victory at the White House Monday with President Donald Trump, an administration official told The Inquirer.
The White House said Hurts and other players aren’t attending due to “scheduling conflicts,” but that “the vast majority of team” would be there. Hurts could not be immediately reached for comment.
» READ MORE: The Eagles visit the White House: Live updates
The Super Bowl MVP raised a few eyebrows when asked at the Time 100 gala Thursday evening if he’d be joining his teammates at the White House.
Hurts responded with an awkward “Um” before walking away from the interview.
Ahead of the visit, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie downplayed the politics of visiting Trump’s White House, and said it was up to individual players if they wanted to attend the celebration.
“Our culture, these are optional things,” Lurie said earlier this month. “If you want to enjoy this, come along and we’ll have a great time. And if you don’t, it’s totally an optional thing.”
Lurie is considered one of the more liberal owners in the league and has been critical of Trump in the past.
He was a frequent donor to Democrats over the years. He gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2015 and donated to Barack Obama’s in 2008.
More recently his donations have gone to two PACs — the Gridiron PAC, the NFL’s political action committee, and Our Future United, which launched in 2020 to communicate with young progressive voters in an effort to flip Senate seats for Democrats.
Monday’s celebration is a redo of a visit that never happened in 2018.
The Eagles notably did not visit the White House that year following their Super Bowl win, the first in franchise history. Trump rescinded the team invite after several players spoke critically of him and suggested they would skip the visit.