Megan Rapinoe responds to Trump over criticism of US women's soccer team: 'You're rooting for people to do bad?'

• Megan Rapinoe called Trump's criticism of the US women's soccer team a "sad dig."
• Trump accused the team of being "woke" and not focused on winning during their Olympic run.
• Rapinoe has publicly clashed with Trump in the past, spurning a 2019 invite to visit the White House.

American soccer star Megan Rapinoe on Friday responded to former President Donald Trump's assertion that the women's national team would have captured a gold medal instead of bronze at the Tokyo Olympics if they weren't "woke."

During an interview with NBC, Rapinoe, who helped lead the team to a 4-3 win over Australia to win the bronze medal, was asked if she had seen Trump's statement castigating the team. The former president, in a statement issued by his Save America PAC, accused the soccer players of being "woke" and not focused on winning.

"Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has," he said. "If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn't woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze."

On Monday, the US team was upset by Canada 1-0 in a semifinals match, putting them out of contention for the Olympic gold medal. The Canadian team went on to defeat Sweden and win gold.

Rapinoe, who in 2019 tussled with Trump after spurning an invite to visit the White House to mark the team's FIFA World Cup victory, said that she heard about the former president's statement but did not have much to offer in response.

"It's a real sad dig into an old bag," she said of Trump's comments. "I'm just like, 'You're rooting for people to do bad?' Yikes."

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In his statement, Trump took direct aim at Rapinoe, who helped lead the team to a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics and was a key team member during its 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup tournament victories.

"The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!" he said.

Rapinoe, who scored a rare corner-kick goal known as an "Olimpico" during the match against Australia, expressed that while the team did not experience "the tournament we wanted" while in Tokyo, she was proud of the team's efforts during the final game.

"The performance we had in the last game, that's who we want to be and that's who we are," she said.

In 2019, Rapinoe deemed herself a "walking protest" to Trump's agenda, and as the team was working toward its eventual World Cup win that year, she dismissed any sort of White House invite and said she was "not going to the f------ White House' to celebrate.

While Rapinoe later apologized for her language, she did not back down from her criticism of Trump.

Trump responded to her at the time on Twitter by saying she "should win before she talks."

Rapinoe has been highly outspoken on issues surrounding equity, including tackling the gender pay gap and strong support of the Black Lives Matter Movement.