The White House announced Friday that President Joe Biden will welcome the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs to the White House on May 31 – but it seems unlikely that football’s most famous fan will be in attendance.
It’ll be the second visit in as many years for the Chiefs, who are celebrating the first back-to-back Super Bowl championships in two decades.
The visit caps off a particularly high-profile season for the Chiefs after pop superstar Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce went public with their relationship early in the season. But, it’s unlikely that Swift will be visiting the White House with Kelce – she’s touring Europe as part of the foreign leg of her record-breaking “Eras Tour” and will be playing a show in Madrid the night before the visit before traveling on to Lyon, France, later in the weekend.
Spe aking to reporters following last year’s visit, quarterback Patrick Mahomes called the trip to the White House “surreal.”
“I mean, I’ve never been to Washington, DC. I’ve never even got to see from the outside, seeing the White House or any of the monuments or memorials,” Mahomes told reporters. “And so, to be able to be here and see that, and see the history of this great nation that we have – it was really cool for me to just be here and be in the moment, and I don’t think I could ever really imagine it being as cool as it was.”
The visit could have some underlying tension after Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker criticized Biden, who is Catholic, and other unnamed Catholic leaders for “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America” – an apparent reference to transgender rights. His commencement speech at Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas, drew criticism, particularly for a portion in which he said that a woman’s accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals.
“I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said during the speech.
“How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world,” he said.
Butker also praised his wife Isabelle, saying she “would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
Asked earlier this week whether Butker would visit the White House with the team, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid told reporters, “Oh, I’m sure he will, yeah.”
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to weigh in on the delicate situation when asked during a press briefing last week if the White House expected Butker to attend the festivities.
“Honestly, what I can say is we invite the entire team and we do that always. I don’t have anything beyond that,” she told reporters. “We invite the team, it’s an invitation that goes to the team, and so it’s up to the team who comes and who doesn’t.”
Mahomes defended Butker on Wednesday, telling reporters that Butker is a “good person,” despite “not necessarily agreeing” with his comments.
“I’m not going to judge him by that. I judge him by the way he acts every single day. I’m not going to get into the full details of the entire speech,” Mahomes said. “At the same time, I know what type of person he is and I’m going to make sure I look at that first and let the other stuff handle itself.”
Reid said he talks to Butker “all the time” but did not address the speech with him.
“We’re a microcosm of life here,” Reid said. “Everybody is from different areas, different religions, different races and we all get along. We all respect each other’s opinions, and not necessarily do we go by those but we respect everybody to have a voice.”
“It’s a great thing about America and we’re just, like I said, a microcosm of that,” he continued. “My wish is that everybody could follow that. … I don’t think he was speaking ill to women. He has his opinions, and we all respect that. I let you guys in this room, and you have a lot of opinions that I don’t like.”
CNN’s Jacob Lev and A.J. Willingham contributed to this report.
