For the second straight year, the Kansas City Chiefs will be making a trip to the White House. The Chiefs will be heading to Washington D.C. this week to celebrate their Super Bowl win with President Joe Biden on Friday, the White House has announced.
The visit will come less than three weeks after Harrison Butker criticized Biden while giving a controversial speech at Benedictine College in Kansas. During the speech, the Chiefs kicker called out the president for his abortion views. Butker is pro-life while Biden is pro-choice.
"Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith, but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally," Butker said. "He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I'm sure, to many people, it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice."
Super Bowl winner Matt Birk skipped Baltimore's White House trip in 2013 because he disagreed with former President Obama's abortion stance, but right now, it's not clear if Butker is planning to go that route.
Although Butker doesn't see eye-to-eye with Biden on several issues, including LGBTQ rights (Butker took a shot at Pride Month during his speech), White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made it clear that the Chiefs kicker will still be welcomed when his team comes to visit.
"Honestly, what I can say is we invite the entire team and we do that always. I don't have anything beyond that," Jean-Pierre recently told reporters when asked if Butker would be invited. "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."
Last week, Chiefs coach Andy Reid was asked whether he expected Butker to be at the White House, and he seemed pretty confident that his kicker would be making the trip.
"Oh, I'm sure he will, yeah," Reid said.
In the same interview, Reid said he wasn't going to get upset with his kicker for exercising his freedom of speech.
"I talk to Harrison all the time," Reid said. "I didn't talk to him about this. I didn't think I needed to. We're a microcosm of life here. We're from different areas, different religions, different races. 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. That's a great thing about America."
Butker was at the White House for the Chiefs' Super Bowl celebration last year. During that visit, Butker subtly showed off his anti-abortion stance by wearing a pro-life tie.
As for other Chiefs players, there's a good chance that almost everyone on the roster will be in attendance on Friday, including Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, who both spoke in support of their teammate, even though they said they didn't agree with everything he said.
The Chiefs will be celebrating their fourth Super Bowl win in franchise history, but this will be just their second trip to the White House. The Chiefs didn't make a trip following their win in Super Bowl IV, because visiting the White House wasn't a tradition yet. The team also didn't make a trip following their Super Bowl LIV win over San Francisco due to COVID. However, they did visit the White House last year after beating the Eagles in Super Bowl LVIII. They'll now once again be making the trip to celebrate their most recent Super Bowl win, which came over the 49ers in February.
