{"id":102851,"date":"2025-06-04T08:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/102851\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T08:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:23:10","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-write-letter-to-fans-upset-with-players-at-trump-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/102851\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers write letter to fans upset with players at Trump rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, President Donald Trump held a rally<\/a> near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to announce the merger between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel. The event was at Mon Valley Works\u2014Irvin Plant, a \u201chot strip mill\u201d operated by U.S. Steel.<\/p>\n

Trump was joined onstage by two current Pittsburgh Steelers players, quarterback Mason Rudolph, safety Miles Killebrew, and former Steelers player Rocky Bleier. The players expressed their support for Trump and celebrated the merger of the two steel companies. Bleier gifted the president a Steelers football jersey with the No. 47 and the name Trump on the back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about this president of ours, huh?\u201d Killebrew said. \u201cJust wanted to say God bless you, President Trump, and God bless you, Pittsburgh. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. President, on behalf of U.S. Steel and to the people of Pittsburgh,\u201d said<\/a> Bleier. \u201cMore importantly, though, to all the Steelers fans that are here this evening, I have the honor of making you an honorary Pittsburgh Steeler and would like to present to you your jersey, as \u2026 with the number 47 as the 47th President of the United States, a number that hangs in the National Football League Hall of Fame. I\u2019d like to present to this to a Hall of Fame President.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those in attendance loved the gesture; others who were not at the rally, not so much.<\/p>\n

Steelers fans who were upset that Trump was gifted the jersey contacted the football team and relayed their displeasure, the Associated Press reported. The Steelers responded by sending a letter to upset fans stating they were not involved with the ceremony and did not authorize giving the jersey to Trump. They also noted<\/a> that the views and opinions of the Steelers players who appeared with the president at the rally did not necessarily align with the \u201centire\u201d Steelers franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that a recent rally in Pittsburgh has generated a range of reactions from our fan base,\u201d read the letter<\/a>. \u201cOur alumni and current players make their own individual decisions that reflect their views, and they do not necessarily represent the view of the entire Pittsburgh Steelers organization. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your passion and your continued support of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudolph and Killebrew were also criticized for their appearances at the rally, but both players were unfazed by the comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the nature of social media,\u201d said Rudolph. \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of why America is so great. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Speech is free. Par for the course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Killebrew dismissed any concerns about his appearance, saying he \u201ccouldn\u2019t care less.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday, I got the chance to meet the sitting U.S. president. I\u2019m not apologetic about that,\u201d Killebrew said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ll be able to sit down with my kids when they\u2019re learning about the president and say, \u2018Hey, dad met that guy.\u2019 For anybody who thinks that\u2019s a bad thing, to be honest, I couldn\u2019t care less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, President Donald Trump held a rally near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to announce the merger between U.S. Steel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[78,7,122,88,6,520,57,2360,9,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-102851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-national-football-league","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114624135919596374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}