Nationals closer Sean Doolittle says he won't join team's White House visit [View all]

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Nationals closer Sean Doolittle says he won't join team's White House visit
Jack Baer
Yahoo Sports Contributor
Yahoo SportsNov 1, 2019, 7:56 PM


The Washington Nationals will be missing at least one major contributor when visiting the House on Monday.

Closer Sean Doolittle told The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty on Friday that he does not plan to attend the team’s White House visit. Doolittle is the first member of the Nationals to publicly confirm he will not attend the event, currently scheduled for 1:15 p.m. ET on Monday.

The White House announced the visit early in the morning on Friday, two days after the Nationals won their first-ever championship in seven games.

Dougherty additionally reported that while Doolittle is the first to shoot down visiting the White House, people close to the team said a “handful of players” are also wrestling with the decision.

Why Sean Doolittle will not visit Trump

In an interview with Dougherty, Doolittle cited Trump’s public conduct as the reason for his decision:

“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country. My wife and I stand for inclusion and acceptance, and we’ve done work with refugees, people that come from, you know, the ‘s---hole countries,' ” Doolittle said, mimicking when Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “s---hole countries” in a January 2018 meeting.

“At the end of the day, as much as I wanted to be there with my teammates and share that experience with my teammates, I can’t do it,” Doolittle continued. “I just can’t do it.”

Doolittle also reportedly cited Trump’s past violations of the Fair Housing Act, his treatment of the Central Park Five and his comments following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, as well as his mocking of a disabled reporter.

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