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The Washington Nationals won their first World Series title in history on Wednesday night, and have since been invited to the White House to celebrate their big win next week.
The Washington Nationals have accepted an invitation to visit President Trump at the White House on Monday.
The ceremony will take place at 1:15 p.m. on the South Lawn. https://t.co/kLsp8nVJ2Z
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 1, 2019
The team will be without pitcher Sean Doolittle, who spoke to the Washington Post about why he was declining President’s Trump invitation.
"I don’t want to hang out with somebody who talks like that.”
An extensive, exclusive interview with Sean Doolittle on why he will not visit the White House with the Nationals on Monday: https://t.co/VxXPHRCDd0
— Jesse Dougherty (@dougherty_jesse) November 2, 2019
Via Washington Post
“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country. My wife and I stand for inclusion and acceptance, and we’ve done work with refugees, people that come from, you know, the ‘shithole countries,’ ” Doolittle said, referring to Trump’s comments about Haiti, El Salvador and African nations in a January 2018 meeting.
“At the end of the day, as much as I wanted to be there with my teammates and share that experience with my teammates, I can’t do it,” Doolittle continued. “I just can’t do it.”
Doolittle expanded he couldn’t hang out with Trump because his brother-in-law is autistic and Trump once mocked a disabled reporter.
People say you should go because it’s about respecting the office of the president. And I think over the course of his time in office he’s done a lot of things that maybe don’t respect the office.”
“I have a brother-in-law who has autism, and (Trump) is a guy that mocked a disabled reporter. How would I explain that to him that I hung out with somebody who mocked the way that he talked, or the way that he moves his hands? I can’t get past that stuff,”
As of now, Doolittle is the only player that has voiced his concern about visiting the White House but it wouldn’t surprise me if a few more players dropped out before Monday.