Saquon Barkley fires back at haters for criticizing him hanging with Donald Trump

Ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles’ visit to the White House on Monday to celebrate their Super Bowl victory, star running back Saquon Barkley hung out with President Donald Trump. Barkley was seen at Trump’s golf course located in the state of New Jersey on Sunday.

Barkley has drawn plenty of backlash from folks since news of him spending time with the controversial Republican president became public, and he fired back at the haters with a post on X on Monday morning.

“lol some people are really upset cause I played golfed and flew to the White House with the PRESIDENT,” the post from Barkley read. “Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand. Just golfed with Obama not too long ago…and look forward to finishing my round with Trump ! Now ya get out my mentions with all this politics and have amazing day 😂”

Trump recently called Barkley a “nice guy” when speaking to reporters and joked that he was looking to race the speedster but ended up deciding against it.

Barkley is on the heels of his most productive season at the NFL level. He ran for a league-high 2,005 yards in the 2024 season and also averaged a whopping 125.3 rushing yards per contest. Barkley is just one of nine players in the history of the NFL to total 2,000-plus rushing yards in a single campaign and the first to do it since Derrick Henry.

Barkley was equally effective when the playoffs rolled around, as he totaled 499 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns and 17 first downs rushing across four games played (all starts).

His decision to spend time with the president of the United States comes not long before Eagles star quarterback Jalen Hurts gave an answer that he will not be in attendance at the White House.

During Trump’s first term as president, the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018 but did not visit the White House to celebrate that title. There were several players on that team who refused to attend due to Trump’s criticisms of national anthem protests, and Trump eventually rescinded his invitation to the Eagles.

Though Barkley argued in his X post that folks were getting overly political in his mentions, he arguably did something overly political in hanging out with Trump. It seems as if players on the Eagles have varying opinions on Trump, and it seems like Hurts won’t be in attendance on Monday.