(RepublicanDaily.org) – First Lady Jill Biden, Ph.D. appeared to walk back a former joint invitation to LSU and Iowa to visit the White House, and as a result, faced political and social backlash, the Associated Press reported.
The invitation turned to controversy when the First Lady was accused of “insulting” the LSU team, as well as “all black basketball players,” Ernest Owens explained in an opinion written for The Daily Beast. In Owen’s view, an opinion he shared with the LSU basketball team members and other Liberal Americans, Newsweek reported. The First Lady’s open invitation to the losing team was a “racial double standard.” The LSU women’s basketball team is composed predominantly of African American players.
The First Lady was still scheduled to host the NCAA men’s and women’s championship basketball teams from the University of Connecticut and Louisiana State University, at the time of this report. While the First Lady had extended an invitation to welcome the Iowa team, which was defeated in the championship, President Biden reportedly appeared to “shut the door” on the invitation the First Lady made one day before Biden’s national statement on the event.
Professional basketball criticized the First Lady’s invitation, the Daily Mail reported. American sports TV personality Stephen A. Smith called the invitation “a joke,” on social media. LSU basketball player Angel Reese, who drew media attention for taunting the Iowa team as the game wore down, responded to Smith’s comments via a Tweet.
Reese wrote, in a tweet that was quoted by the Daily Mail, that, in her view, while she intended no disrespect to the First Lady, she agreed that the Iowa team should not also be invited to the White House
The controversial now-rescinded invitation of the Iowa basketball team followed after President Biden became the first American president in the history of the American football sport to decline to appear in an interview during the Super Bowl halftime show, The New York Times reported. The 2023 Super Bowl show was hosted by Fox News.
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