WASHINGTON — The event was supposed to be about soccer. Inter Miami CF, the 2025 MLS Cup champions featuring Lionel Messi, was at the White House on Thursday for the traditional championship celebration. But President Donald Trump had baseball on his mind. And sitting to his left in the crowd was a familiar face from the Yankees past who, not long ago, was one of his favorite targets on social media.
Alex Rodriguez was in the building. And this time, Trump was not calling the former Yankees star names.
What played out at the White House was a striking reversal from a man who once torched the former Yankees slugger in public, paired with a blunt critique of the sport Rodriguez once dominated. It was part nostalgia trip, part broadside against Major League Baseball, and entirely on-brand for a president who rarely misses a chance to share his opinions on sports and the Yankees.
From ‘druggie’ to ‘my friend A-Rod’
The contrast between Thursday’s White House scene and Trump’s earlier public statements about Rodriguez could not be sharper. Between 2012 and 2013, when Rodriguez was still in Yankees pinstripes and embroiled in performance-enhancing drug scandals, Trump went after the Yankees slugger repeatedly on what was then Twitter.
“The @Yankees must re-negotiate @AROD’s contract. He is not the same player without drugs,” Trump wrote in May 2012.
It got worse. In April 2013, Trump posted: “Druggie A-Rod, @MLB’s biggest fraud, is lucky George Steinbrenner is no longer with us. @Yankees would have voided his contract.”
That same year, Trump wrote of the Yankees star: “It is a great victory for NYC that A-Rod will never wear pinstripes again.”
Fast forward to Thursday, and Trump was singing a very different tune. With Rodriguez seated nearby, the president spoke warmly about their shared history.
“I love sports and I watched my friend A-Rod with George Steinbrenner, we’d sit in his box just the two of us,” Trump said.
According to Front Office Sports, Trump and Rodriguez met privately in the Oval Office before the Inter Miami event. White House spokesman Davis Ingle confirmed the visit, saying: “Alex Rodriguez is a Miami legend and the White House was excited to have him join the celebration.”
Rodriguez, who grew up in Miami and has deep ties to the city, did not have a formal role in the Inter Miami celebration but was invited to attend. The two men appeared to have buried whatever grudge once existed between them.
Trump reminisces about Steinbrenner and the Yankees
The president also spent time reflecting on his relationship with the late George Steinbrenner, the legendary Yankees owner who died in 2010. Trump described sitting in Steinbrenner’s private box during Yankees World Series games, just the two of them, while the Yankees were at the peak of their powers.
“He would never have anybody but me,” Trump said of Steinbrenner. “He liked me, right? He liked me, he liked you. He liked almost nobody.”
Trump joked that sitting through three-hour games with Steinbrenner was the hardest thing he ever had to do. The comment drew laughter, but there was a point underneath the humor. Trump was building toward something bigger.
‘They do things wrong’ and what that might mean
After the Steinbrenner stories, Trump pivoted to the present state of baseball. And he did not hold back.
“It would be a World Series when baseball was hot, it’s not as hot now, I’ll be honest with you. They do things wrong,” Trump said.
He did not elaborate on what exactly MLB is doing wrong. But the comment landed in the middle of a sports landscape where baseball’s place in American culture has been debated for years. Trump has previously criticized MLB for being “woke” and has taken issue with the league’s handling of Pete Rose and Roger Clemens, both of whom were kept out of the Hall of Fame for years.
Rose, MLB’s all-time hits leader, was posthumously removed from the permanently ineligible list in May 2025. Trump had publicly pushed for Rose’s pardon before that decision.
There are also ongoing concerns about competitive balance. The Dodgers led all of baseball this offseason with a $396 million payroll. The Mets sat at $368.66 million. The Yankees were at $325.82 million. Meanwhile, teams like the Marlins ($78.11 million), Guardians ($94.75 million), and Nationals ($102.41 million) operate at a fraction of those budgets. The talent gap between the haves and have-nots has been a sore point for fans and analysts for years.
A salary cap could change that dynamic. The current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of 2026, and negotiations are expected to be contentious. The MLB Players’ Association has shown no interest in accepting a cap, which raises the possibility of another work stoppage.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred visited the White House in April 2025 to discuss issues related to the sport with Trump. Whether Thursday’s comments signal renewed presidential interest in baseball’s business side remains to be seen.
Rodriguez’s complicated Yankees legacy
Rodriguez won a World Series with the Yankees in 2009 and ranks fifth on the all-time home run list with 696. But his Yankees legacy remains clouded by performance-enhancing drug use. He admitted to using PEDs over a three-year period, though he maintained it was not during his time with the Yankees. He served a full-season suspension in 2014.
That history is the primary reason Rodriguez has not been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. His candidacy on the Yankees and in baseball remains one of the most polarizing in the sport. The fact that the president of the United States once called him “MLB’s biggest fraud” and now calls the former Yankees third baseman “my friend” adds another layer to an already complicated story.
For Yankees fans, the scene at the White House was a reminder that baseball’s past and present remain tangled in ways that go well beyond the diamond. Trump may have moved on from his A-Rod grudge. Whether the president is done taking shots at MLB and the sport the Yankees call home is another matter entirely.
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