Spectator exclusive: Don’t ban the tush-push, says Trump

In a wide-ranging interview with The Spectator in the Oval Office on Thursday, President Donald J. Trump weighed in on the state of the National Football League. He gave opinions on quarterback play and the location of the Washington Commanders’ stadium. He also weighed in on the argument over whether the league should ban the Philadelphia Eagles’ famed “tush-push” play — and another rule he told Commissioner Roger Goodell to change.

“So fans of the NFL right now, I don’t know if you’re if you’re familiar with this because you watched the [Super Bowl], but there’s been this whole debate about the main play that they run, the ‘tush-push,’” The Spectator queried. “So they’re debating whether they should ban it or not. One side says: ‘ban it. It’s an almost unstoppable play.’ The other side says: ‘so? You’ve got to stop it.’”

“I wouldn’t ban it,” Trump said. 

“But what I would ban is this horrible kickoff rule, this new kickoff rule that is so bad… so bad,” the president continued. “First of all, it’s the opposite of football. Second of all, it’s actually more dangerous because you’re actually going into each other without any defense or anything. It’s much more dangerous. It is so terrible. You know, when in football, when the ball moves, you’re supposed to be moving. This ball is up in the air and they’re all saying it is so horrible to watch that. And I told that to Roger Goodell.”

When asked if the game is better now than it has ever been, Trump cited the “big ratings” for the Super Bowl and then spoke with awe about the performance of young quarterbacks in the league, including Jalen Hurts, Brock Purdy and Jayden Daniels.

“And how good is the quarterback right? Oh boy. When you can draft a young quarterback… it’s like gold,” Trump said. “You take a guy who’s great in college and he turns out to be no good. I mean, and then you’ll take somebody like in San Francisco. That kid, he was the last draft choice. He wasn’t Brady, he was six rounds back. He was literally the last guy in the draft and — he moves the ball right?” 

The White House plans on welcoming the Philadelphia Eagles at the end of April. Yesterday, Trump had welcomed Kansas Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, and the president noted his intention to give the team a do-over for their canceled visit during the pandemic.

“You know, it’s one of those things. They’re coming here. Philadelphia is coming here. And Kansas City, when they won the Super Bowl during Covid, you couldn’t have them here. You, virtually, couldn’t have it. It was too bad. And I said, ‘you know what? I should really invite them for that.’ And I told them, they want to come. By the way, they really want to come. They do. You know who came? The kicker came today. He’s a Trump fan. He’s a nice guy. Great kicker. And he came. But he said, ‘yeah we missed it because of the Covid.’ I said, ‘well let’s do it.’” 

The president also spoke about the change from past controversies about visiting the White House under his first presidency.

“One little difference is they wanted to come mostly. Many of them really wanted to come. But a couple of teams that canceled would have never canceled now,” the president said. “But when I heard, like, San Francisco basketball team, [Steph] Curry, when I heard a little rumor like ‘They’re going to take a vote.’ When I heard ‘take a vote,’ that means: no good. So I said, you don’t have to take a vote because you’re no longer invited. Do not come under any circumstance. And it was cool. People said that’s the coolest thing. They never got to take a vote because I could see the writing on the wall. Now it’s much different. It’s much different.”

President Trump also discussed the location of RFK Stadium, and the possibility of building a new stadium during his tenure as part of the effort to rebuild Washington, DC — asking this editor (a lifetime Washington fan) about what should be done.

“So locationally you love — not the stadium, you would rip down the stadium. But you love that location. It’s so beautiful when you’re driving up,” Trump said. “The site is great… What I love is you’re driving up and it’s, you know, it splits the road… You’d like to have it built in Washington. So should I take over the government of DC?”

“If that’s the outcome, not only would I be in favor of it, but virtually every Washington fan would be in favor of it,” I responded.

“Well, we’re trying to do it. We’re looking at doing it,” Trump said. “[Josh Harris is] a nice guy, by the way. The owner, I met him. You know, I went to a game. [Jayden Daniels] is… that kid was really good, wasn’t he? Second draft pick he was… he was just a natural man, the way he flicks it.”

After some discussion of the Chicago Bears’ Caleb Williams, the Houston Texans’ C.J. Stroud and the Carolina Panthers’ Bryce Young, Trump returned to the topic of taking over DC. 

“You’d like to see the stadium built here? All right. Good. Because you know, the DC takeover, right? We’re working on that. Right?” Trump said to an aide, who affirmed the need to “clean up the city.” 

“[Mayor Muriel Bowser], the tents… it was good during my administration, but the crime… look, these are incompetent people, like her.”

Inquiring one last time about the RFK Stadium location, the president leaned into the idea.

“So you’d like to see that? Maybe we’ll do that,” Trump said. “I mean, I’m pretty busy.”