Steve Kerr: ‘Out of respect for office,’ Warriors would consider White House trip

Steve Kerr discussed the Warriors’ potential trip to the White House at length on Thursday. They have not yet been invited.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr went on Chicago’s Waddle and Silvy show Thursday and further discussed the team’s potential White House visit.

Kerr said the Warriors still have yet to receive an invitation to visit the White House, as is tradition for all American major team sport champions. Kerr is among those within the team who have been outspoken with their distaste for president Donald Trump.

Kerr emphasized that he would hope the players would consider attending “out of respect for the institution” if invited. “Maybe it’s like, hey, let’s actually, you know, try to do something that’s unifying,” he said.

His full comments are below, as transcribed by Deadspin.

“We haven’t been invited. And so if we’re invited, we’ll definitely have a discussion. You know, I’ve been outspoken about Trump, our players have been as well. But my whole thing is—I would want to talk to the team and entertain the idea of going out of respect for the institution, out of respect for the office itself, and maybe as a good gesture to the rest of the country that is so divided right now that maybe it’s like, hey, let’s actually, you know, try to do something that’s unifying, whether you like the person in the office or not. Let’s look at it from a different perspective. So that would be the conversation that I would have with our guys, and ultimately it would be their decision, you know, because it’s about them. 

But I think there’s just different ways of looking at it, and what shocks me is just how divided our country is. And since that story came out about whether we’d go to the White House or not, there was a petition—like 50,000 people signed a petition begging us not to go. There are people on the other side who are crushing us, saying that we’re being disrespectful of the office and we should go and we’re not being loyal Americans, and we haven’t even been invited. It’s like, sit back. And I can’t even believe how angry people on both sides are, and then I think, as I said, I think more about—instead of just being angry, what can we do to try to help bring people together in this country, because that’s ultimately going to be a huge factor in our country’s ability to heal and move forward....

“...It’s important to me that there’s a respect for the office and for the institution, and that’s why I would consider going. But I will be perfectly blunt and I know I’ll anger people by saying this, but I want the man who’s sitting in the office to respect that office, too, and that means being above the tweeting and the nasty personal insults and trying to unify the country instead of trying to divide us, and I feel like he’s trying to divide us.... When you’re sitting in that office, it’s really your responsibility to try to unify, and that’s where our players and I have had a difficult time trying to reconcile all this stuff.”