Donald Trump Meets With MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred
President Donald Trump met with Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred at the White House on Wednesday, per a Washington Post report confirmed by Fox News.
Though the league confirmed that Manfred and Trump met, it did not disclose what the two discussed. Trump has previously criticized the league for refusing to admit Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.
"Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as ‘Charlie Hustle,’ into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME!" Trump said on his Truth Social platform earlier in 2025.
A league spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Manfred was "pleased" to "discuss issues pertaining to baseball."
"President Trump is a longtime fan of baseball. As he has done in the past, Commissioner Manfred was pleased to visit the White House again to discuss issues pertaining to baseball with the president," said the spokesperson of the visit.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. (Photo by Tony Avelar/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
Trump Meeting Comes After Rob Manfred's Past Political Mistakes
Manfred has a checkered history when engaging with political figures. He famously caved to misinformation from Stacey Abrams and then-President Joe Biden on Georgia's voting bill. That led to MLB pulling the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta and moving it to Colorado. Which, ironically, had stricter voting laws than Georgia.
After that embarrassment, Georgia saw record turnout, including higher minority turnout than in previous elections. Manfred never admitted wrongdoing, though did award Atlanta the 2025 All-Star Game to make up for it.
READ: Georgia Has Record Early Voting Turnout, But Still No Apology From MLB
He also, like virtually every major sports organization, gave the league over to the Black Lives Matter furor in 2020. After a police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, a man wielding a knife at police with a warrant out for his arrest on third-degree felony sexual assault charges, Manfred pressured teams to stage "social justice" protests. All because of further misinformation from left-wing political figures.
Of course, that decision was celebrated by left-wing sports media, consumed by unfounded accusations of wrongdoing by police in the Blake incident.
But after years of blowing with the prevailing progressive political winds, he's finally apparently altered course. MLB removed DEI references from its website after the 2024 presidential election, signaling a sea change in its thought process.
Hopefully the meeting with Trump will spur further shifts towards sanity from Manfred and America's National Pastime.