The most outstanding player of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament has doubled down on her refusal to visit the White House after first lady Jill Biden suggested the losing team from Sunday’s championship game also come.
Traditionally, each sitting president hosts the national champions of various sports for a congratulatory photo opp at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But in her first exclusive interview since leading Louisiana State University to a 102-85 shellacking of the Iowa Hawkeyes, star player Angel Reese refused to let Biden walk back her comments.
“I don’t accept the apology because you said what you said … You can’t go back on certain things that you say,” Reese told “I AM ATHLETE” podcast hosts Brandon Marshall and Ashley Nicole Moss on Tuesday.
“[Iowa] can have that spotlight. We’ll go to the Obamas.’ We’ll go see Michelle. We’ll see Barack.”
Reese is a Baltimore native who transferred to LSU after playing two seasons at Maryland.
Noting her attendance at the championship game at an event in Denver on Monday, Biden congratulated both teams on their performance and singled out Iowa for losing gracefully.
“So, we hope LSU will come but, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game,” the first lady said.
Responding on social media that same day, Reese called the first lady’s remarks “A JOKE” on Twitter and added in an Instagram comment: “WE NOT COMING. period.”
On Tuesday, Biden’s press secretary Vanessa Valdivia said in a tweet that the first lady “intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes.”
“She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House,” Valdivia added.
But Reese suggested the first lady’s praise of mostly-White Iowa was a racial slight to LSU’s mostly-Black cagers.
“I just know if the roles were reversed, they wouldn’t be the same. If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House,” Reese said.
In a Tuesday op-ed, right-leaning Newsweek columnist Darvio Morrow, who like Reese is Black, called the first lady’s comments a “racist moment.”
“Dr. Biden’s stupid comment is a symptom of a larger problem,” Morrow said in a tweet sharing his column. “Black Americans are taken for granted by the very people we put in power, because they don’t fear any political consequences.”
The White House shouldn’t “take glory from” LSU by inviting Iowa, added Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, a women’s rights activist and attorney who founded the progressive quarterly magazine Women in Leadership.
“If Iowa won you wouldn’t invite LSU,” she tweeted to Biden on Tuesday, noting that fans had engaged in a “racist pile” on Reese for taunting Clark during the title game. “The way Whiteness centers itself is exhausting.”
After former President Barack Obama congratulated LSU on Twitter, LSU’s Alex Morris tweeted former first lady Michelle Obama to ask if the team could celebrate the win at their house.
A spokesperson for the Obamas has declined to comment. The Washington Times reached out to LSU for comment.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey had said after Sunday’s game she would go to the White House if the team was invited.
Iowa star Caitlin Clark, who on Tuesday received the Wooden Award as this year’s most outstanding female college basketball player, said her team should not go to the White House because runners-up usually don’t get invited.
“That’s for LSU,” Clark said. “That’s a pretty cool moment and they should enjoy every single second of being a champion.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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