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Trump Joins Celebration of Winning U.S. Women’s Soccer Team

New York City will throw a ticker-tape parade for the players this week, says mayor’s office.

Trump Joins Celebration of Winning U.S. Women’s Soccer Team
(Source: official Twitter handle of Fifa’s Women’s World Cup)

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump joined a national celebration of the winning U.S. women’s national soccer team, little more than a week after clashing on social media with one of the team’s stars who said she wouldn’t visit the White House if invited.

Trump, who’s scheduled to return Sunday afternoon from a weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, tweeted that “America is proud of you all!” after “great and exciting play.”

New York City will throw a ticker-tape parade for the players this week, Mayor Bill De Blasio’s office announced shortly after the team clinched its fourth World Cup title.

“You have inspired the entire country -- and New York City knows how to celebrate champions,” de Blasio said on Twitter.

Trump Joins Celebration of Winning U.S. Women’s Soccer Team

Plaudits poured in from notables including former President Barack Obama, who called the U.S. lineup “an incredible team that’s always pushing themselves,” first lady Melania Trump, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, and sports figures from Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman to tennis champion Serena Williams to NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

On June 26, Trump took on U.S. player Megan Rapinoe -- a purple-haired LBGTQ rights activist who scored one of the team’s two goals in Sunday’s win over the Netherlands in Lyon, France -- after she said she wouldn’t go “to the f__king White House” if the team won, based on her opposition to some of Trump’s policies.

“I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women’s Soccer, but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS,” Trump said. The president said at the time that he was “inviting the TEAM, win or lose,” adding that “Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag.”

The New York parade will kick of at 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday and travel through the Canyon of Heroes, a stretch of Broadway in lower Manhattan, the mayor’s office announced.

On his personal Twitter account, de Blasio, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said the U.S. team members “deserve our respect, our admiration, and Equal Pay Now!” Tennis legend Billie Jean King tweeted that “it is long past time to pay them what they rightly deserve.”

The New York Times reported that the U.S. players would collect about $250,000 each in bonuses for winning their fourth world title, a fraction of what the men’s team would rake for a similar result.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Kevin Miller, Mark Niquette

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.