In the aftermath of LSU’s national championship victory over Iowa on Sunday, First Lady Jill Biden drew plenty of criticism for her suggestion that the Hawkeyes should also receive an invite to the White House despite losing the game. Tigers star Angel Reese made her feelings known on Twitter earlier in the week, and on Tuesday, she expanded on her view during a lengthy interview with Brandon Marshall and Ashley Nicole Moss on the I Am Athlete podcast.
Reese told Marshall and Moss that she did not accept Biden’s apology after Biden walked back her comments on Tuesday. The First Lady’s press secretary, Vanessa Valdivia, tweeted on Tuesday that Biden’s comments about Iowa being invited to the White House were, “intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes. She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”
For Reese, though, the damage had already been done—and she had an idea for an alternative way for the Tigers to celebrate the program’s first-ever national title.
“I don’t accept the apology. Because, you said what you said … you can’t go back on certain things that you say,” Reese said. “You felt like they should have came because of sportsmanship, right? They can have that spotlight. We’ll go to the Obamas, we’ll see Michelle, we’ll see Barack.”
Reese didn’t definitively state that she and her teammates were planning on skipping the White House visit, though she said that the notion that Iowa would also get invited irked her because she did not feel that the Tigers would have received a similar offer.
“I just know if the roles were reversed, that it wouldn’t be the same. If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House,” Reese said. “And I remember, she made a comment about both teams should be invited because it was [about] sportsmanship. I was like, ‘Are you saying that because of what I did?’ Stuff like that, it bothers me.”
