A columnist felt second-hand embarrassment for District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser after President Donald Trump turned her into a bit player in his ongoing misinformation campaign.
The Democrat Bowser appeared alongside the president, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris Monday as Trump announced the league's annual draft will be held on the National Mall in April 2027. Washington Post columnist Candace Buckner shamed all three of them for giving Trump his "hero shot."
"They did so awkwardly and probably unwittingly inside the Oval Office," Buckner wrote. "But there they were: the billionaire team owner, the powerful league commissioner and the liberal mayor, all demoted to minimum-wage extras filling the background. Nothing more than political props for a president who uses sports as his shield."
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Bowser, a liberal Democrat, "stood there staring soullessly ahead," Buckner wrote, as Trump smeared immigrants as murderers, drug dealers and terrorists. The columnist said the mayor's obvious discomfort wasn't nearly enough to signal her disagreement.
"By virtue of their placement behind him, whenever Trump went off script, their presence implicitly signaled their support for everything that came out of his mouth, even if some of it was misinformation," Buckner wrote. "They thought that a day intended to celebrate the nation’s capital and America’s biggest sports league would stay that way. Instead, the president who never sticks to sports made them his personal cheerleading squad."
Trump cracked jokes about posting an AI-generated image of himself as the pope, which Goodell obliged with a laugh, as Bowser stood awkwardly behind the president.
"As the president kept speaking, the background actors continued to play their part," Buckner wrote. "Bowser chose silence, apparently attempting to signal her discomfort through pained facial expressions, even though she had decided to be in that room. Goodell laughed on command. Harris piled on the compliments. And sports — the biggest stage prop of the day — furnished the spotlight."