After Jill Biden poured fuel on the fire between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, FS1’s Skip Bayless accused the First Lady of implied racism.
Biden was in attendance to watch LSU beat Iowa in the 2023 Women’s National Championship Game Sunday night and on Monday, she proposed inviting both teams to the White House. Her invite came as the nation created a race debate amid the rivalry between the predominantly Black LSU women’s basketball team and Iowa’s predominantly white roster.
The controversy was ignited after LSU’s Angel Reese, a Black woman, was considered classless for the way she celebrated her team’s win, while Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, a white woman, was not criticized for making a similar gesture earlier in the tournament. Biden responded to the obvious double standard by making things worse, suggesting Iowa should be bestowed with the honor of an invite to the White House even though they lost the game.
Skip Bayless: “What our first lady said on Monday, came across as this unspoken, between the lines, implied racism” pic.twitter.com/lwwOt4SXTS
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 6, 2023
“My gut feeling is that what our first lady said on Monday, came across as this unspoken, between the lines, implied racism,” Bayless said Thursday morning of Biden’s White House invite. “It smacked of, ‘Poor Caitlin had to endure that shameful taunting by Angel Reese, so let’s bring poor Caitlin’s white Iowa team to the White House and celebrate them too. It smacked of that. It came across, to me, as this unintentional, unwitting, sort of naïve white racism.”
“Angel said, ‘I don’t accept her apology.’ Well, the truth is, Jill Biden did not apologize,” Bayless continued. “Her press secretary reissued a statement that was just an amended statement that omitted Iowa…she didn’t say, ‘I’m sorry for what I said.’ She just simply said, ‘we look forward to having LSU come to the White House,’ no Iowa mention. So let’s not go so far as to say, ‘I don’t accept her apology,’ because there was no apology.”
It’s ironic to hear Bayless condemn someone else for failing to issue a proper apology when the “no apology” is something he’s very familiar with. Throughout his career as a hot take artist, Bayless has circumvented retracting or apologizing for statements that were deemed offensive.
Bayless noted he wishes the negativity surrounding women’s basketball would subside. And while the first lady has been justly called out for her ignorance, it’s a shame that the championship game which generated record-breaking viewership is being overshadowed by racial conversations.
