The U.S. women's Olympic hockey team declined President Donald Trump's invitation to attend his State of the Union address on Tuesday, with a spokesperson for the team telling NBC News that they couldn’t attend «due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.» An athlete skis past Olympic rings during a cross country training session at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 5. «We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal–winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,» the spokesperson wrote on X. «They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.» The announcement came after House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday that he expected both the women's and men's hockey teams—which both took home the gold in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games—to attend Trump's speech. Trump invited the men to attend his speech during a phone call Sunday as they celebrated an overtime victory against Canada—the first gold medal win in the event since 1980. A video of Trump surfaced, showing him speaking to the team on FBI Director Kash Patel's cellphone as Patel was inexplicably drinking beer and partying with the players on taxpayers’ dime. xDisgusting. Team USA laughing with President Trump as he complains about having to invite the women’s team to the White House too.Yes, the men’s hockey team winning gold is a much bigger deal.But show some fucking respect for your fellow Team USA athletes. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/nn6Y3oWiK0 pic.twitter.com/AUflRNyhjg— All Rice (@thats_bb_suzyn) February 23, 2026 In that same phone call, Trump disparaged the women's team, lamenting that he would also have to extend an invitation to the female players. «I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that,» Trump said, as the players laughed. «I do believe I probably would be impeached.» A number of the players on the men's team are Trump supporters, including Matthew Tkachuk, who visited the White House last month with his Stanley Cup-winning NHL team. U.S. men's hockey team celebrates winning gold in the 2026 Winter Olympics. «The two Cups was pretty good, but that walk with you might've trumped it all there. That was pretty amazing,” Tkachuk said at the event, which was held amid backlash to Trump's immigration goons killing Americans. »I'm so proud to be an American and so proud to be here with you and everybody else.« Politics have seeped into this year’s Olympics, with multiple players saying that they were proud to represent the United States but did not support what the Trump administration is doing back home. For example, freestyle skier Hunter Hess said that »it brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now.” “There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't,” he added. “Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S.«  And a member of the U.S. curling team, Rich Ruohonen, criticized Trump’s violent and deadly immigration operation in Minnesota. “We'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention what's going on in Minnesota,” he said. “What's happening in Minnesota is wrong. There's no shades of gray. It's clear.” x x YouTube Video Skier Gus Kenworthy was even more blunt, posting on Instagram an AI image with the words “fuck ICE,” which appears to be written in urine in the snow.   x View this post on Instagram A post shared by gus kenworthy (@guskenworthy) “You can call your Senator at (202) 224-3121 to speak up against ICE and put pressure on them during the current DHS funding negotiations,” he captioned the post. Meanwhile, gold-winning U.S. figure skater Amber Glenn said that, »Politics affect us all. It is something that I will not just be quiet about.« Of course, being the malignant narcissist that he is, Trump lost it when he was rightfully criticized by the athletes, disparaging those who spoke out against him on Truth Social. Figure skater Amber Glenn performs at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 21. “Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it,» he wrote. And Trump’s comments led MAGA trolls and GOP lawmakers to pile on Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Hess to “shut up and go play in the snow,” while And Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida simply told him to go home. "YOU chose to wear our flag. YOU chose to represent our country. YOU chose to compete at the Olympics. If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME. Some things are bigger than politics. You just don’t get it,” Donalds wrote on X. Of course, being able to criticize the government is an essential part of being American. Forcing Olympic athletes to stay quiet or to praise the government, however, is something you’d expect from countries like North Korea or Russia.  But Republicans only want free speech for themselves—not for me, not for you, and not even for Olympians.

Leading Republican voices like Donald Trump Jr. are promoting a new “investigation” by conservative activist Nick Shirley which purports to prove voter fraud in California, but the core premise of the video was quickly debunked. The false allegation adds to the ever-growing pattern of behavior by Shirley and other right-wing serial misinformers like James O’Keefe, who promise bombshells that fizzle at the slightest bit of examination. Shirley posted a video on Saturday alleging that domicile addresses registered at a San Diego UPS store were “illegal.” Shirley claims that “you can receive a ballot at a PO Box, but it cannot be the domicile address—which over 30 of them are, errors and suspected fraudulent activity is everywhere in California voter rolls.” Related | GOP ignores reality to boost MAGA YouTuber's racist attacks The self-proclaimed journalist claimed that despite his purported evidence, “California seems to not care about their voter rolls meanwhile you do not even need an ID to vote,” and further insisted that this was just one example of "voter fraud” in the heavily Democratic state. In his post pushing the Shirley video, Trump Jr. wrote, “It never ends. Imagine if the mainstream media actually spent even a few minutes looking into any of these things?” But the claim was false. As X readers pointed out in a community note later added to Shirley’s post, the UPS store in question is part of a mixed-use residential development with apartments above it. The 30 listed residences in question are in fact perfectly legal residential addresses for voters. Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona called out Shirley’s bogus bombshell. Nick Shirley speaks during a roundtable meeting with President Donald Trump on antifa in the State Dining Room at the White House on Oct. 8, 2025, as Savanah Hernandez listens. “PO Box is an acronym for Post Office Box. A UPS Store is not a PO Box and likely serves as the community mail box for the development,” Gallego wrote. “The fact that we are making public policy based on this inexperienced boy is an indictment of the Republican Party.” Shirley’s video is part of an attempt to recreate the fog of disinformation he created a few months ago with a series of videos alleging that Somali immigrants in Minnesota were operating fraudulent daycare centers, and that the practice was being ignored by Democrats leading the state government. But Democrats had addressed those issues previously, with investigations and even resulting convictions.  President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers nonetheless used Shirley’s video as an excuse to send federal troops into Minnesota as part of his mass deportation policy, a deployment that led to the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Shirley is an influencer who pivoted into the world of MAGA politics and tailored his content to support bigoted right-wing policy ideas, bringing him millions of followers and support from prominent Republicans like the Trump family and members of Congress.  Related | MAGA influencer's face-plant shows pitfall in creator culture His dishonest work echoes the behavior of serial misinformer James O’Keefe, himself a protégé of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart. O’Keefe has produced several series of videos targeting progressive activists and Democrats, most of which were debunked soon after their release. Continually seeking new controversy to stir up, O’Keefe was eventually exposed for trying to entrap a CNN reporter on a boat stocked with sex toys, as well as an incident where he was arrested while trying to sneak into the office of a Democratic senator.  With support from the Republican establishment and his work’s underlying dishonesty, Shirley is now following in O’Keefe’s slimy footsteps.

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | High-profile resignations and replacements as Epstein case fallout spreads

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Americans are pissed at the state of Trump's union He’s just as popular as he was after Jan. 6. Despite crises in US, FBI director chugs a beer in Italy U.S.A.! U.S. … ugh. All the ways Trump will illegally impose more tariffs He’s nothing if not a petulant jerk. Cartoon: Stocks & Bondis The attorney general’s fawning over Trump won’t save her. Lawyer who took down tariffs trolls Trump Children of immigrants: They get the job done. Nicki Minaj trades 'Barbz' for bots amid MAGA transformation Looks like there are some “super freaky” shenanigans going on. How Democrats can leverage Trump’s economic disaster It’s still the economy, stupid. Trump tells grieving families all about his own suffering It’s the “Let’s not make this about me” challenge, level: impossible. Click here to see more cartoons.

After a Winter Olympic Games of athletes celebrating each other as much as they did winning, the response from the Trump administration is equal parts disheartening and gross.  These are people who are functionally incapable of seeing the Olympics as anything but an opportunity to display their xenophobic loathing of other countries and to celebrate victory as a sort of violent domination.  In short, the Trump team simply didn’t understand anything about these Olympics.  Amber Glenn takes a selfie with ice dance team Madison Chock and Evan Bates after winning gold on Feb. 8. Perhaps the highest-profile example of this was the diminutive FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the U.S. men’s hockey team on your dime.  Or maybe it’s that, after the men’s hockey team beat Canada for the gold, the official White House X account posted a picture—which we can all safely assume is AI slop—of a bald eagle attacking a Canadian goose on a frozen lake. Beating Canada in a hockey game apparently means we have subjugated the entire country? Terrific.  Or perhaps it’s the AI slop video of President Donald Trump—the biggest, most pathetic starfucker there ever was—inserting himself into the game so he could punch a Canadian hockey player.  This behavior would be disgusting at any time, but it’s especially jarring after an Olympics where the athletes themselves made conscious decisions to show care for each other—including their rivals. Nowhere was this clearer than in figure skating, where U.S. skaters banded together to cheer other countries’ skaters on, with Ilia Malinin taking time to congratulate Mikhail Shaidorov for his gold medal—even after Malinin’s didn’t place at all for his free skate performance.  And after Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto was inundated with reporters forcing cameras in her face, she learned that she lost the gold to U.S. skater Alysa Liu. Liu’s teammate, Amber Glenn, rushed to comfort Sakamoto, telling one reporter to stop trying to film her crying.  But it wasn’t just figure skaters.  After Australian snowboarder Valentino Guseli unexpectedly made it into the finals of the big air competition, Swiss snowboarder Jonas Hasler carried Guseli around on his shoulders in celebration. Australia's Valentino Guseli competes during the men's snowboarding halfpipe finals on Feb. 13. And we also were treated to the adorableness of “Dads Podium,” where all three dual moguls winners were joined by their partners and young children.  It also wasn’t just athletes.  The closing ceremony highlighted how important togetherness was to the games, with International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry  telling athletes in her final remarks, “You showed us that the Olympic Games are a place for everyone. A place where sport brings us together.” She also thanked the Italian people for their graciousness toward the athletes. “You celebrated your champions and you cheered for athletes of every nation, showing that passion and respect can live side by side,” Coventry  said. The notion that people can care for each other—even as sports rivals—and that connection matters more than jingoism and xenophobia is utterly foreign to people like Trump. The only thing he knows how to celebrate is the subjugation of others.  Related | Why the Olympics turn Republicans into sore losers Sadly, it looks like the U.S. men’s hockey team is totally down for this sort of thing, eagerly accepting Trump’s invitation to his State of the Union address on Tuesday.  The plans for it already sound gross, with House Speaker Mike Johnson trying to break the House rule that says that no special guests are allowed on the floor. He says he’s “trying to work out logistics to see if there’s some way to perhaps get them into the gallery and the doors, wave and receive the applause they’re due.” Proposing to break legislative rules to do some xenophobic screaming about AMERICA is so on brand for this administration that it feels like the writers’ room for this season is getting lazy.  But unfortunately, it’s real. At least the rest of us can fall back on our memories of what it looks like when athletes come together and care for each other.

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