Donald Trump turned a Republican campaign stage in Iowa into an attack on the WNBA on Thursday night, warning that the league would “destroy themselves” and urging his supporters to stop watching unless players stand for the national anthem.
“They’ll destroy themselves before they get started because they’re just starting to do good,” Trump told the crowd, as reported by The Comeback. He compared the situation to the NFL’s handling of kneeling protests, telling the Sioux City audience: “The NFL did that for a while. They stopped because people stopped watching the games. So I think you should do the same thing with women’s basketball unless they get going.”
The anthem complaint has a specific target. Both finals teams, the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries, have stepped off the court before the national anthem at every game of this series. The Indiana Fever and the Minnesota Lynx, by contrast, stayed on the floor through their playoff anthems earlier in the postseason.
Dream a win from championship point
The political volley arrived with the series tilted toward Atlanta. The Dream routed the Valkyries 97-71 at State Farm Arena on Wednesday, October 21, with Angel Reese posting 21 points and 12 rebounds for her third consecutive double-double of the finals, according to Yahoo Sports. Rhyne Howard added 16 points and five steals as the hosts shot 49.3 per cent from the field in front of a sold-out crowd.
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That win left Atlanta 2-1 up and two victories short of a first WNBA title.
AOC frames the trans debate separately
Trump’s rally also pulled the transgender athlete debate back into the postseason conversation, a thread that has run alongside the anthem row throughout these finals. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been pushing a parallel line in recent days, arguing that the political focus on trans girls in sport is a tactic aimed at Title IX, the federal law that protects girls and women from sex discrimination in US education.
“When they want to focus on trans girls in sports, it’s not just about trans girls in sports,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent speech, as reported by The Comeback. “This is about girls, all girls in education. It’s about attacking Title IX.”
The New York Democrat told the same event that targeting transgender athletes also puts “all women’s ability to stand up against their abusers” at risk, and framed the broader agenda as an attempt to use roughly three per cent of the US population as cover for dismantling Title IX, constitutional protections and public healthcare funding.
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Dream can move to championship point at home
The Dream can move to championship point back at State Farm Arena. Game 4 tips off at 1pm local time on Saturday, October 24, with Golden State needing a win to force the series back to the Bay Area for Game 5.
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