Former US President Donald Trump has slammed his country's "woke" women's national soccer team following their bronze medal showing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and gave tips on how they can supposedly return to winning ways.
The four-time World Cup winners went into the tournament facing accusations of overconfidence matched by the domestic press, some of whom even suggested the Olympics might be too easy for them.
In the end, the US team recovered from an opening game drubbing at the hands of Sweden to reach the semi-finals, but were felled by North American neighbors Canada who beat them for the first time in over 20 years.
The result led to widespread mocking of woke warrior Megan Rapinoe, and her old nemesis Trump has taken the opportunity to dig into the squad even though they salvaged some pride with a 4-3 bronze medal match win over Australia on Thursday.
Also on rt.com ‘Everyone laugh at the USWNT’: Megan Rapinoe and USA teammates brutally mocked following shock Olympic Games defeat to CanadaBanned from social media, Trump released a statement which began: "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.
"Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has," he continued.
"There were, however, a few Patriots standing.
"Unfortunately, they need more than that respecting our Country and National Anthem. They should replace the wokesters with Patriots and start winning again.
"The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job," Trump finished, in direct reference to Rapinoe, who in the past has described herself as a "walking protest" against his policies.
This is not the first time that Trump has blasted the team recently.
At a rally in late July, he encouraged a crowd in Phoenix to boo them.
"Wokeism makes you lose," Trump scoffed in a video that has been shared on Twitter.
"The US Women's soccer team is a very good example of what's going on," he added, shaking his head and smirking.
"Earlier this week they unexpectedly lost to Sweden three to nothing and Americans were happy about it," he claimed.
"You proved that point before I even said it," he quipped, to the crowd's laughter.