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The Plot Thickens
Published:
Stick to sports!
Well it’s kind of hard to do that when the White House and the Eagles collide head first with one another, figuratively.
The latest piece of news making the rounds is this bit from Politico reporter Annie Karni, who seems to have the White House’s side of the story:
WH official tells me — last Thurs, the Eagles submitted 70+ names to attend. On Fri, Eagles tried to resked event for days when POTUS was gonna be in Singapore. On Mon, they said the group avail on pre-planned date wld be TWO or THREE players + owner + MASCOT.
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) June 5, 2018
Hmm.. okay. I find it very hard to believe that the Eagles would try to reschedule 24 hours or less after submitting their attendance list.
More:
The WH narrative on this is that it was a bait and switch — 70+ names originally sent in, reduced to 2 or 3 players — and an attempt by a sports team to publicly humiliate the WH and the president. https://t.co/PTbTOvFQeS
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) June 5, 2018
Yeah? I don’t know. That would be pretty insidious if the Eagles did that. I don’t think Jeffrey Lurie and Doug Pederson are those dudes, but that’s just my opinion, man.
There’s also this from ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers:
This source also tells me that over the past few days, the White House asked the Eagles “How many players are coming?”
ABC has learned # of players planning to attend was less than 10. Eagles were going to to send team captains as part of small delegation. (h/t @Real_MaryK8)
— Karen Travers (@karentravers) June 5, 2018
Malcolm Jenkins is a team captain, so that report suggests he would have met with Trump. Unless, of course, the team just picked new captains for the day, or made something up to avoid that. For what it’s worth, the other four captains this season were Carson Wentz, Brandon Graham, Chris Maragos, and Jason Peters.
And “those events” Travers mentions are the youth and community service events the NFL Player’s Association talked about in their statement this morning:
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) June 5, 2018
That’s the very latest.
Reporting for Crossing Broad dot com, I’m Kevin Kinkead. We’ll send it back to you in the studio.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com