Women's soccer veteran Megan Rapinoe, who scored two goals to lead the U.S. National Team to a bronze medal at the Olympics, was asked about former President Donald Trump's criticism of a "radical group of leftist maniacs" Friday, lamenting that Americans would root for a U.S. team to lose.
"It's a real sad dig into an old bag," Rapinoe told NBC affiliate WOOD-TV on Friday about Trump's remarks. "I'm just like, 'You're rooting for people to do bad? Yikes.'"
Trump has lambasted ''woke'' athletes at the Olympics, and particularly the women's soccer team that has been critical of him, politicking in the past presidential election against him, and staging protests in the name of social justice while the national anthem is being played.
"Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has," Trump wrote in a statement from his Save America PAC on Thursday.
"If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of leftist maniacs, wasn't woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze."
Trump took a pointed shot at Rapinoe, who often dyes her hair for matches.
"The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about radical left politics and not doing her job!" Trump's statement added.
Rapinoe, 36, confirmed she had seen Trump's remarks, laughing them off and mostly declining to comment.
Rapinoe did not hold back on her criticism of Trump while he was president. She called herself a "walking protest of Trump policies in 2019,'' according to The Hill, and vowed after winning the World Cup she was "not going to the f****** White House" if Trump invited the team. He did not.
Rapinoe praised her team for coming back to win the bronze with a 4-3 victory over Australia.
"The performance we had in the last game, that's who we want to be and that's who we are," Rapinoe said.
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