Donald Trump became the first sitting president in nearly a half-century at a regular-season NFL game, attending the Washington Commanders\u2019 contest against the Detroit Lions on Sunday.<\/p>\n
There were boos<\/a> from large sections of fans in the stands \u2013 as well as scattered cheers \u2013 when Trump was shown on the videoboard late in the first half \u2013 standing in a suite with House Speaker Mike Johnson \u2013 and again when the president was introduced by the stadium announcer at halftime. The Washington DC area has strong Democrat support, while Trump\u2019s cuts to the government have affected many workers in the vicinity of the Commanders\u2019 stadium. Sunday was not the first time Trump has received a hostile reception from a Washington sports crowd: he was greeted with \u2018lock him up\u2019 chants<\/a> at the Washington Nationals\u2019 home stadium during the 2019 World Series.<\/p>\n Allow content provided by a third party?<\/p>\n This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.<\/p>\n The jeering continued while Trump read an oath for members of the military to recite as part of an on-field ceremony during the break in the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a little bit late,\u201d Trump told reporters earlier when he got off Air Force One after landing at Joint Base Andrews, following a flyover of Northwest Stadium during the game. He then got in his armored car for the drive to the arena.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna have a good game. Things are going along very well. The country\u2019s doing well. The Democrats have to open it up,\u201d he said \u2013 a reference to the government shutdown.<\/p>\n In the first quarter Sunday, before the president arrived, Lions receiver Amon-Ra St Brown celebrated a touchdown catch by doing the \u201cTrump dance\u201d, which athletes started performing last year<\/a>. Fox then gave the president nearly 10 minutes of airtime as he joined the broadcast booth, spoke about his football career in high football career and called some of the action in the third quarter. Asked how he thought the country was doing, the president answered somewhat dubiously<\/a> that prices are going down for Americans. He also admitted he had not scored any touchdowns in high school, saying: \u201cAt least you realize I never tell a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is just the third sitting president to attend an NFL game during the regular season, according to the league, after Richard Nixon in 1969 and Jimmy Carter in 1978. Trump became the first president at a Super Bowl while residing in the White House when he watched<\/a> the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs in February.<\/p>\n According to a report by ESPN on Saturday, an intermediary for the White House has told the Commanders\u2019 ownership group that Trump wants the club\u2019s new stadium \u2013 part of a nearly $4bn project in the nation\u2019s capital at the site of what was known as RFK Stadium \u2013 to bear his name<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to build a beautiful stadium. That\u2019s what I\u2019m involved in, we\u2019re getting all the approvals and everything else,\u201d Trump said during his Fox appearance. \u201cAnd you have a wonderful owner, Josh [Harris] and his group. And you\u2019re going to see some very good things.\u201d<\/p>\n Sunday\u2019s visit was the latest in a series of high-profile appearances at sporting events by Trump, including golf\u2019s Ryder Cup<\/a>, auto racing\u2019s Daytona 500 and tennis\u2019 US Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are honored to welcome President Trump to the game as we celebrate those who have served and continue to serve our country,\u201d Commanders president Mark Clouse said. \u201cThe entire Commanders organization is proud to participate in the NFL\u2019s league-wide Salute to Service initiative, recognizing the dedication and sacrifice of our nation\u2019s veterans, active-duty service members, and their families this Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump was presumably unimpressed with the Commanders\u2019 performance as they went down to a 44-22 defeat \u2013 he left the game early.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump became the first sitting president in nearly a half-century at a regular-season NFL game, attending the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-273207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}