Alex Rodriguez & Messi Scolded For Celebrating Inter Miami Championship At Trump's White House

Well, you can add Alex Rodriguez to the list of celebrities you didn’t know were buddying up to President Trump supporters.

The New York Yankees legend was on hand at the White House on Thursday to celebrate Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF’s MLS championship.

He’s got no actual ties to the team —it’s actually part-owned by David Beckham— but he does have ties to the city after nearly being part of the group that purchased the Marlins in 2017, and of course, grew up there.

Still, a smiling Trump welcomed A-Rod in the Oval Office before the ceremony, and while he spoke during the ceremony in the East Room, he said he was a “big fan” of the baseball star, even calling him a “friend.”

The compliment came during one of Trump’s infamous sidebars, where Rodriguez’s presence reminded him of all the games he used to watch sitting next to late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the good old days when “baseball was hot as a pistol.”

“[Steinbrenner] liked me, I liked him, and we both liked nobody else,” Trump said, as he remembers agonizingly watching three-hour-long games.

He went on to diss the MLB’s current state, saying it’s currently “not as hot” as it used to be and that the sport does “things wrong.”

The A-Rod praise is surprising given how much he disliked him in the 2010s, after he served his 162-game PED suspension for getting caught with testosterone and HGH.

“A-Rod is just not making it. We want to give him a chance but it was only drugs that made him great,” Trump tweeted in 2012.

The following year, he doubled down, tweeting, “Druggie @AROD is now scheming to sue the @Yankees. He will go down as the biggest sports embarrassment of all time.”

The disdain seemed to be mutual, with A-Rod supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 election and donating to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

During the ceremony, Trump was presented with a jeweled pink soccer ball —to match the club’s colors— with his signature on it.

Trump mentioned other soccer legends, saying Messi is better than Pele and rival Cristiano Ronaldo.

“[Barron] is a big fan of yours,” Trump told Messi. “He thinks you’re just a great person. He’s a tremendous fan of yours, as well as a gentleman named Ronaldo… Cristiano is great. Some big champions, some great, great athletes in that sport.”

See social media’s reaction to Rodriguez’s White House visit below.