President Donald Trump undecided on whether to invite Raptors to White House
President Donald Trump isn’t sure whether he’ll invite the Toronto Raptors to the White House. When asked, Trump said he would have to “think about it.”
Trump said it was an “interesting question,” and that the team played “phenomenal basketball.” He then congratulated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and reiterated that he would “think about it.”
The relevant portion of the interview begins around the 8:10 mark:
Trump says that he will bring up the case of detained Canadians Micheal Spavor and Micheal Kovrig with the Chinese President XI and that he's thinking about inviting the Raptors to the White House. Here is the full avail #cdnpoli https://t.co/Sb69sJpPfs
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) June 20, 2019
It has become customary for the President to invite professional sports champions to the White House in recent years. For Trump, however, getting NBA teams to accept that invite has proved difficult.
The Golden State Warriors have declined that invite multiple times. Trump was so insulted he eventually revoked the team’s invite. The whole situation resulted in LeBron James calling Trump a “bum.”
It’s unclear whether that played into Trump’s uncertainty about whether to invite the Raptors to the White House. There’s also the issue of the Raptors playing in Canada, though the team features plenty of players who were born in the United States, including Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse has already said the team is working on a meeting with Trudeau. On Wednesday, Nurse said he had not heard from the White House, but added, “We’re Canada’s team anyway, right?”
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
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