{"id":663737,"date":"2026-05-12T04:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663737\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T04:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:46:10","slug":"trump-insists-star-nfl-draft-pick-is-a-huge-fan-despite-skipping-white-house-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663737\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump insists star NFL draft pick is a huge fan despite skipping White House event"},"content":{"rendered":"

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President Trump<\/a> claims that Fernando Mendoza, the recent number one NFL draft pick, is a \u201cbig fan\u201d of the Trump administration, even though the quarterback did not join his former Indiana University teammates visiting the White House on Monday to celebrate their national championship<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Mendoza, who was drafted by the Las Vegas Raiders first overall<\/a>, even called the president to apologize, Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was so nice,\u201d Trump<\/a> said. \u201cHe called because actually\u2026(he\u2019s) a big fan of ours. You wouldn\u2019t believe it because he didn\u2019t show up. I\u2019m not happy, but that\u2019s OK. The reason he didn\u2019t is because he\u2019s at spring training, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFernando<\/a> couldn\u2019t be here today because, as I said, he\u2019s now a member of the Las Vegas Raiders and let\u2019s see how good a team they have,\u201d Trump added. \u201cI think he\u2019s going to do great. He\u2019s a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Independent has contacted Mendoza<\/a> for comment.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Trump claimed on Monday that the recently drafted college football star Fernando Mendoza called to explain why he missed a visit to the White House with his former Indiana University teammates (Getty)<\/p>\n

The Raiders confirmed to the Las Vegas Review-Journal <\/a>that Mendoza was at the team\u2019s facility in Henderson on Monday for preseason preparations. <\/p>\n

The Heisman Trophy-winner himself acknowledged earlier that he wouldn\u2019t be able to join the victory tour at the White House because of Raiders obligations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on the bottom of the totem pole here,\u201d he told reporters last week. \u201cI\u2019ve got to prove myself. I can\u2019t miss practice. I don\u2019t know anything official. I don\u2019t have the calendar, but I just wouldn\u2019t. As a rookie, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good look, and I want to try to best serve my teammates. And I don\u2019t know if that\u2019d be accomplishing that goal.\u201d <\/p>\n

As The Athletic notes, multiple Hoosiers missed the White House visit because of NFL obligations on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"MendozaMendoza said last week he would likely have to miss the White House event because of team obligations with the Las Vegas Raiders (Getty)<\/p>\n

Indiana sent a program-record eight players to the league this year, and Mendoza is one of four members of the national championship Indiana squad now with the Raiders.<\/p>\n

Trump previously encountered Mendoza at the national championship game in January, where the quarterback led the undefeated Hoosiers to win Indiana\u2019s first national championship in program history. <\/p>\n

At the game, Trump was greeted with a thunderous reception<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Raiders fans are hoping Mendoza can bring some of the same magic he showed in that 27-to-21 win to the Raiders franchise, which hasn\u2019t made it to the Super Bowl since 2003<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[3050,49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-663737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-american-football","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663737","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=663737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}