The US Women’s National Team (USWNT) was infamously booted from the World Cup after an embarrassing loss to Sweden. Before that, however, toward the start of the tournament, the USWNT made waves and headlines with its refusal to participate in singing the national anthem.

That refusal to sing, with the team members instead standing silently, stood in stark contrast to the members of the Vietnamese team, against whom they were playing. Those players loudly and proudly sang their country’s anthem.

What happened? Why did the USWNT not sing their anthem loudly and proudly, or, in the case of some of them, even put their hands over their hearts, particularly given their privileged position in the world as professional athletes? Well, according to podcaster and conservative political commentator Megyn Kelly, it’s because Megan Rapinoe has “poisoned” the minds of the entire team.

Speaking about that during a broadcast of her show on Sirius XM, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly argued that Megan Rapinoe is the reason for the team’s shameful display of a lack of patriotism and that she did so by poisoning their minds against America, the country for which they play.

Beginning, Kelly argued, “Megan Rapinoe, she’s the leader of all this… She’s not a starter. So that’s why she’s not on camera when they’re doing the national anthem, but she’s behind a lot of this.” Continuing, Kelly argued, “She’s (Rapinoe) poisoned the entire team against the country for which they play.”

She then added that she wouldn’t root for the unpatriotic team because it won’t root for America, saying, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not rooting for them. I’m not with them. I hope they lose…It’s shameful. These girls are shameful. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
That’s not all. Kelly also hammered the team for its laziness during the anthem, noting that it is absurd that many members of the team didn’t even place their hands over their hearts and that they’ve ruined the idea of feminism for many Americans, as thanks to Rapinoe and her fellow soccer players they associate it with the USWNT’s anti-American sentiment.

Speaking about that, Kelly said, “I really do believe their version of what a feminist is, what it means to be an empowered woman, at least as an American woman, means you need to hate your country. It means to go out on the national stage and embarrass yourself and your country by not singing the national anthem. For several of them, not even holding their hands over their hearts when the national anthem played, was a bridge too far.”

She continued, saying, “They couldn’t be bothered to actually place their hand on their heart as the national anthem played, as they stood out there representing you and me and the country and our military and people who have given their lives for the country that they represent. It was too much of an effort [for them] to place their hand over their heart, or God forbid, sing.”