ABC Seeks Out USA Hockey Women’s Player to Bash Trump, CBS/NBC Hype Trump Callgate

Curtis Houck
February 26th, 2026 3:27 PM

Text to Speech

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On Thursday morning, the “Big Three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to throw more chum in the shark-infested waters they’ve helped manufacture against the U.S. men’s hockey team for associating with President Trump this past week. This time, ABC cued up women’s hockey team captain Hilary Knight to attack Trump while the others kept the storyline alive the men’s team has a lot to atone for because Trump joked about the women during a Sunday postgame phone call.

In other words, they lived up to what the great Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review has branded as “narrow, monomaniacal, outlandish, freakish guff’ and led to him jokingly “want to throw the entire [sports press] corps into a lake.”

ABC’s Good Morning America again led in the partisan buffoonery and seeing admiration and honor as conditional based upon one’s politics.

Co-host and former NFL player Michael Strahan asked Knight partway through the interview: “But Hillary, there has been a lot of talk about that call the President made to the men’s hockey team. Will the women’s team be accepting his offer to come to the White House?”

Knight made it seem like it won’t happen: “I’m not sure. I’m really not sure where that stands. There was an announcement the other day. As far as my knowledge, like, I have not seen anything.”

She then took her swipe at Trump: “I thought the call in of itself was distasteful and an awesome [inaudible] moment to refocus the narrative and understand our words matter and how we speak about women matters.”

Knight concluded the real story should be “celebrat[ing] this team as we earned our celebration on the stage, and representing our country in the best way” plus “continuing to drive success...and be the inspiration that we are in our communities.”

Co-host and former ESPN anchor Robin Roberts reacted as though Knight and the team had been subject to some sort of dangerous mob or hate crime: “Well, I hope that you — and you’ve handled it — everyone — with such — with such grace and strength.”

CBS Mornings spent just over two minutes on it during its “What to Watch” block.

Under the chyron “U.S. Hockey Team Speak on Trump Comment,” featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers said “the members of the U.S. hockey team” are “talking now about President Trump’s joke that did not land well for some” as, along with their Tuesday White House visit, Trump “seemed to put down the U.S. women’s team” during a Sunday phone call.

After the clip in question with Trump quipping he’d have to invite the women’s team or “I would probably be impeached,” Duthiers declared “the men are taking some heat for laughing along with the President at that joke [at] the expense of the women’s hockey team.”

While “Jack Hughes says people are making something out of nothing and both teams support each other,” Duthiers painted Hughes as in the minority (click “expand”):

DUTHIERS: Yesterday, his teammate, Jeremy Swayman and the women’s team captain, Hilary Knight — the legendary Hilary Knight —

GAYLE KING: Mmmm!

DUTHIERS: — said this.

JEREMY SWAYMAN: We should have reacted differently. We know that we are so excited for the women’s team. We have so much respect for the women’s team and to share that gold medal with them is something we’re forever grateful for.

HILARY KNIGHT [on ESPN’s Sportscenter AM, 02/25/26]: There is a genuine level of support there and respect and I think that’s being overshadowed by sort of a quick laugh. [SCREEN WIPE] I know this is just a really good learning point to really focus on, you know, how we talk about women, not only in sport but in industry, women aren’t less than and our achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are.

King weighed in shortly after those soundbites: “I can see why the women are being — I can see why they’re offended by it. I get it.”

Former NFL player and fellow liberal co-host Nate Burleson praised Swayman for having denounced Trump, but defended at least one player in the locker room based on a point few have pointed out: “And I like [Swayman] saying we should have responded differently. I will say this. There was somebody in the background that was yelling two-for-two , basically saying we went two-for-two in the gold medals.”

Duthiers closed by trying to pump up the women’s team even though this entire exercise is undermining the focus on women’s hockey because they all hate Trump: “Stanley Tucci, Megan Thee Stallion, and — talkin’ about — boy, he’s been Flavor Flav has been celebrating the women.”

NBC’s Today at least had the courtesy to spend only 70 seconds of its larger story (three minutes and 37 seconds) on the return of Team USA players from both the men’s and women’s teams to their professional clubs.

“Since the victory, there’s little rest for these stars, who went from winning the gold in Milan on Sunday to Miami on Monday to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday for a stop at the State of the Union. There was some controversy after this locker-room call following their Milan win from the President,” correspondent Emilie Ikeda said ahead of the clip from the phone call.

Like CBS’s Duthiers, Ikeda played the same clips from Swayman and Knight before making clear Knight “also [spoke] to the bond between the two gold medal teams” and Jack Hughes “celebrating their dual success” before his first game back with the New Jersey Devils.

To see the relevant transcripts from February 26, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

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