It’s a Philly Thing, Donald

By Kate Callen

It’s a Philly Thing, Donald

I didn’t think I could feel any happier after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Commanders to win the 2025 NFC Championship and a Super Bowl berth.

Then I learned that Donald Trump had once again dissed my team. And the win became that much sweeter.

Trump and the Eagles have a curious history. He was running for president in 2016 when San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick took the knee during the National Anthem at NFL games to protest police brutality against Blacks.

Some players knelt with Kaepernick, some didn’t. Many fans respected his principled stand, which ended his NFL career. But most were puzzled and pissed.

Trump, always desperate for attention, stoked the flames. The new president took time from his busy schedule to vilify Eagles players for taking the knee on the sidelines.

It was true that a few Eagles knelt down before games. But they weren’t protesting. They were praying.

God answered their prayers with a 2017 Super Bowl win that made Trump furious. When some Eagles said they didn’t want to meet with Trump, he cancelled the traditional White House ceremony for championship teams.

Philly fired back (it’s what we do). Mayor Jim Kenney called Trump “a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party which no one wants to attend.”

Four years later, Trump has returned to the White House, the Eagles are returning to the Super Bowl, and he is picking up where he left off.

On Sunday, he praised the AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs and congratulated “those fantastic FANS, that voted for me (MAGA!) in record numbers.” But he said nothing about the NFC Champs and their fantastic fans (who voted against Trump in three straight elections).

USA Today opened its story about the snub by asking, “Is Donald Trump holding a grudge against the Philadelphia Eagles?”

The answer is “Yes.” And the question is “Why?” Lots of NFL players took the knee in 2016. Why did he single out the Eagles?

Trump has long detested our city – remember his 2020 statement that “Bad things happen in Philadelphia”? – because we have long detested him. Our mutual aversion goes back to the early ‘90s when he became the only person in history who lost money running casinos.

His epic business failure helped tank Atlantic City, which has never recovered. And his malicious refusal to pay contractors and subcontractors bankrupted scores of local businesses.

Philadelphians have a proprietary interest in the South Jersey shore. We haven’t forgotten how he stiffed workers, including our relatives and friends. And we will never let him forget it.

The patriarch of my family back in Philly is my Uncle Fran, age 92, who served with the Marines in the Korean War.

Fran is a retired Atlantic City plumber. He and his colleagues in the building trades did a lot of work on Trump’s casinos. And they lost a lot of money on that work.

When they look at Trump, they see a grifter who cheated vendors by falsely accusing them of shoddy work. A shallow loser whose rich father kept bailing him out of trouble. A coward who slithered out of the military service that so many less privileged men like my uncle performed with valor.

In the City of Brotherly Love, such people are dead to us. Philly is a no-bullshit town where we don’t hesitate to call out conniving slimeballs and we never let up on them.

I understand Trump’s anathema toward my hometown. We wear it as a badge of honor.

I’m delighted to think he will spend the next two weeks fuming at the possibility that Philadelphia might score an upset win over Kansas City.

If that happens, Eagles fans will take a special pleasure in watching Trump sulk while we celebrate.

It’s a Philly thing, Donald.