Christian Pulisic has bizarrely claimed his Donald Trump celebration is not a political gesture after scoring for the United States against Jamaica on Monday night.
Pulisic, the USA’s star man, led his team to a 4-2 win over Jamaica that saw the team cruise into the semifinals of the CONCACAF Nations League by scoring the first goal of the night.
A beautiful long ball by midfielder Weston McKennie fell perfectly for Pulisic – who was able to take a touch amid a rush from keeper Andre Blake that went straight into the net for the 1-0 lead.
Pulisic wheeled off to the sideline and had his arms outstretched before he reached the corner flag.
There, he broke out a twisting dance that served as something of an homage to President-elect Donald Trump.
In an alternate angle of the goal celebration, it appears that teammates McKennie and Ricardo Pepi briefly joined Pulisic in the dance as well.
United States national team star Christian Pulisic divided social media with a celebration
Pulisic broke out Donald Trump’s twisting arm shimmy dance after the opening goal
After the match, Pulisic spoke to reporters and confirmed that he was indeed doing the Trump dance – taking inspiration from many athletes who did the dance during various sporting events over the weekend.
‘I mean you guys know, I saw everyone doing it yesterday in the NFL,’ Pulisic said (via ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle on BlueSky). ‘I saw Jon Jones do it and yeah, we were just having a bit of fun, so I thought it was a pretty fun dance.’
When asked again if he took inspiration from Trump, Pulisic said, ‘Well obviously that’s the Trump dance. It’s not like it was just a dance that everyone’s doing. Yeah, he’s the one who created it, so I just thought it was fun.’
Pulisic was then told that people on social media grabbed onto the celebration and was asked if he was concerned. He made the bold claim that the dance didn’t have anything to do with politics, despite saying that Trump was the inspiration behind it.
‘Not at all. It’s not a political dance, it was just for fun. I saw a bunch of people do it and yeah, thought it was funny so I enjoyed it. I hope some people did,’ he told reporters.
It’s not exactly clear how a dance that is directly tied to a political candidate can be ‘not political’, but Pulisic’s celebration drew plenty of outrage across social media.
‘Pulisic just did the Trump dance?!? Lost all respect. What an a**hole,’ one fan wrote on X.
‘Christian Pulisic does a dance to honor the man who wants to take the citizenship of over half of his USMNT teammates, which is filled with 1st gen and dual [nationals],’ a second fan began.
‘Pulisic himself only made it in Europe due to his Croatian Passport I swear these MAGA idiots get dumber and dumber.’
A third fan said, ‘Pulisic doing the trump celebration? yea that brother truly STINKS.’
And a fourth used the moment to criticize his soccer acumen, writing, ‘Good soccer player but a very dumb person, same guy who wanted to keep Gregg [Berhalter] as a coach a 2nd term. Very on brand with choosing bad leaders.’
Notably, the official USMNT X account posted a video of the goal – but cut out Pulisic’s celebration.
At the same time, plenty of conservative commentators lauded Pulisic for busting out the moves of the former and future President.
OutKick founder Clay Travis captioned a clip of the celebration ‘We are so f***ing back’ and mocked ‘woke American soccer fans’ with a popular clip of a girl crying and laughing.
And Fox Soccer analyst Alexi Lalas – who has previously made his right-leaning political views well known – chimed in as well.
‘Pulisic scores. Pulisic does the Trump dance. We’re winning the World Cup…bigly,’ he said on X.
The Trump dance has become popularized by various athletes throughout the United States
The popular ‘Football Report’ account also added, ‘Pulisic is fully entitled to bring his politics in sports so long as his political left-wing counterparts are allowed to do the same.
‘You can’t cry about politics in sports and then celebrate when the politics that you agree with are brought into sports.’
Pulisic has given clues of his conservative politics before.
In 2020, he liked a post from rapper 50 Cent urging people to vote for Trump in the election. He also liked a post in 2021 that advocated for the shooting of Antifa members.
As for the game, Mauricio Pochettino’s men drew up a convincing victory over the Reggae Boys to win 4-2 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate when combined with a 1-0 victory earlier in the international window in Kingston.
After Pulisic’s tap, the Americans scored via an own-goal by Jamaica’s Di’Shon Bernard before Pepi cashed in on the doorstep of halftime.
Jamaica got one back via Demarai Gray – only for Timothy Weah to score a fourth goal for the USMNT just three minutes later. Gray doubled his scoring tally in the 68th minute, leading to the final score.
