CNN’s Don Lemon: Trump ‘Has a Right’ to Be Angry at Megan Rapinoe

CNN anchor Don Lemon on Monday evening admitted that President Donald Trump “has a right to be upset” at U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe for declaring that she does not want to go to the “fucking White House.”

“I think he has a right to be upset if someone said that I’m not going to the, you know what, White House,” Lemon said. “He has the right to be upset… And if someone said that about me, I’m not sure I would invite them into the place I was living.”

Rapinoe, who is one of the most clutch players to ever put on the U.S. jersey, became a symbol of the resistance when she started kneeling during the national anthem and refused to sing it while wearing the national team’s jersey.

The co-captain and winner of the golden boot got into a back and forth with Trump after her comments to a soccer magazine about not wanting to visit the “fucking White House” was published during the team’s World Cup run.

“I’m not going to the fucking White House,” Rapinoe told Eight By Eight. “No, I’m not going to the White House. We’re not going to be invited. I doubt it.”

Rapinoe said over the weekend that she suspected that “not many, if any, of the other players” on the championship team would want to go to the White House if Trump formally extended an invitation.

“We don’t want to go to the White House,” Rapinoe again told reporters on Monday, wondering if Trump had sent them an invitation by snail mail.

She did, though, accept Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) offer to tour the House of Representatives and said the team would be “happy” to accept Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) invitation to visit Congress. Rapinoe is scheduled to appear on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Tuesday as one of the top symbols of the anti-Trump resistance.

Sports columnists and left-wing pundits have also speculated that Rapinoe’s potential political endorsements could move the needle on the left while Trump is in the White House if she decides to get involved in politics.