Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb slammed NFL star Harrison Butker after he gave a controversial speech telling women to embrace becoming homemakers.
On Thursday’s episode of “Today With Hoda & Jenna,” Bush Hager credited her husband, Henry Hager, with treating her as an “equal partner.”
“Who is [Butker] to tell us?” she quipped, to which Kotb added, “Don’t speak for us. I think that’s kind of the thing. Stop speaking for women out there.”
Both journalists applauded those who are stay-at-home parents, while also stating that some couples don’t have the luxury to afford one parent to be home with the kids.
“It’s an elitist concept to begin with,” Bush Hager, 42, stated.
“I think that there’s a thing about someone speaking for [someone],” Kotb, 59, said. “And [Butker] may be speaking for a lot of people, but you can’t speak for everyone.
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She added, “Women get to decide what they want to do.”
Kotb and Bush Hager’s remarks come nearly a week after the Kansas City Chiefs kicker, 28, gave a sexist and anti-LGBTQIA+ commencement speech at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., on Saturday.
During Butker’s address, he said he’s “gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind” before attacking “dangerous gender ideologies” and President Joe Biden’s “bad policies and poor leadership.”
“Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder,” he added.
The three-time Super Bowl champ then addressed the women in the graduating class, telling them that their “most important title” should be “homemaker.”
“Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world,” he added.
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
Butker also encouraged the male graduates to “be unapologetic in your masculinity” and “fight against the cultural emasculation of men.”
The kicker, whose mom is an accomplished physicist, faced backlash for his views.
GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement to Page Six that Butker’s speech was “not only a clear miss, it was inaccurate, ill-informed, and woefully out of step with Americans about Pride, LGBTQ people and women.”
And the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Jonathan Beane, told People that Butker’s “views are not those of the NFL as an organization.”
“The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Beane added.
