Early Tuesday, America’s new main household — as within the Hughes klan, together with USA Hockey star and gold-medal-winning purpose scorer Jack Hughes — wadded into community morning newscasts and have been sadly met on ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Immediately with makes an attempt to sully their reputations and maim each their character and all the males’s group for taking a telephone name Sunday from President Trump and accepting his invite to the State of the Union.
Jack and brother Quinn Hughes each awoke early to seem on the 2 main newscasts regardless of having arrived again from Italy lower than 24 hours prior and spent the evening partying in Miami.
They first appeared on the superficial-yet-cartoonishly-partisan GMA and issues gave the impression to be going nicely. Co-hosts Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos requested every brother if they’d seen the replays of Jack’s game-winning purpose over Canada.
This continued with co-host former NFL participant Michael Strahan questioning if they’d dreamed of being NHL gamers seeing as how their dad was a coach and mother having performed in faculty earlier than changing into a USA Hockey govt.
However in-between Roberts asking about Jack a few letter he wrote to himself seven years prior about profitable a purpose medal and Strahan welcoming Hughes as a brand new kindred spirit with misaligned enamel, Stephanopoulos interjected with the partisan scorching take: “Quinn, Quinn, Jack talked about the celebration with the ladies’s hockey group. They’ve stated they’re not going to have the ability to go to the State of the Union tonight. Will you guys be going?”
WATCH: Quinn Hughes was requested by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos about attending tonight’s State of the Union…
“I do not know the way a lot we’re allowed to say, however sure. Yeah, we’re excited to go. One thing you do not get to do — I do not know what at the moment is – each Tuesday. However yeah –… pic.twitter.com/POH9XIXqyv
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
Quinn conceded he’s uncertain “how a lot we’re allowed to say, however sure” they’d be going and “we’re excited to go” as a result of it’s “[s]omething you don’t get to do — I don’t know what at the moment is — each Tuesday.”
He went on to additional expound on that in addition to his help for the ladies’s group that dates again to earlier than the Olympics:
However yeah — however, it’s going to be particular for us, however I’m glad you talked about the ladies’s group once more. You already know, we’re actually glad for them. Clearly, rather a lot happening on social media proper now surrounding our group and their group. However, , the final couple we’ve performed lots of coaching with them and bought to know lots of these women very well. We’re extraordinarily glad to come back and, clearly, [inaudible].
Shifting to NBC’s Immediately, all the Hughes household (aside from youthful brother Luke, who additionally performs within the NHL, however was’ ton the group) appeared at one level or one other, beginning with mom Ellen from the bottom of the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
It developed in the identical style as ABC’s did with primary questions on what her expertise was like each on Sunday and within the days main as much as the ultimate. At one level, co-host Carson Daly even requested her to weigh in on how proud she was of Jack “not taking any credit score for the purpose, giving it to his group, speaking about the way forward for USA hockey, the Brotherhood, speaking about his patriotism for this nation.”
Hoda Kotb dragged out the Trump angle and sought to have her nitpick the boys’s group and/or the President for the latter’s feedback — which she stated gained “just a little traction” — joking about needing to additionally invite the ladies’s group to the State of the Union or he’d threat being impeached.
Ellen equally didn’t fall into the lure and as a substitute targeted on how “on the finish of the day, it’s simply in regards to the nation and the second that these gamers, each the women and men, can carry a lot unity to a gaggle and to a rustic.”
NBC’s ‘Immediately’ tried to lure Ellen Hughes — mom of Jack and Quinn — by seeing if she’d bash the boys’s group and President Trump for inviting them to the State of the Union and joking he’d have to ask the ladies or he’d be impeached…
Hoda Kotb: “Let me ask you about factor… pic.twitter.com/ApUVVfauO0
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
Ellen stated that the video games introduced collectively “[p]eople…that don’t watch hockey, those that have politics on one aspect or on the opposite aspect, and that’s all each the boys’s group and the boys’s group care about.”
Additionally sensing the media’s makes an attempt to drive wedges between the 2, Ellen introduced up the camaraderie:
Should you may see what we see from the within and the women and men sharing, , dorms — dorm rooms and halls and flex flooring and the camaraderie and the synergy and the best way the ladies cheered on the boys and the best way the boys cheered on the ladies. That’s what it’s all about. And the opposite issues they can not management. They care about humanity. They care about unity, and so they care in regards to the nation I really like.
Later, she concluded by reemphasizing that “I hope all people simply understands what we did within the second, each the boys and the ladies, to carry this nation collectively and let all people cheer in the identical route.”
Jack and Quinn Hughes appeared roughly a half hour afterward Immediately and, in contrast to ABC, there was no direct query about Trump.
Having simply come off ABC with Stephanopoulos’s gotcha, they appeared ready and made certain to exit of their technique to praise the ladies’s group as “a really particular group” that have been “wonderful to spend time with” and in addition take pleasure in having achieved one thing for the nation:
Quinn Hughes on whether or not USA Hockey staying within the Olympic Village (whereas the Canadians stayed in lodge rooms) was a bonus…
“I am undecided if it performed into us profitable a gold medal, however I do not suppose it harm. You already know, I used to be in a position to room with Jack for just a little over two… pic.twitter.com/yIUvWQUDTa
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
Jack Hughes on supporting the U.S. girls’s hockey group…
“I want — if there is a digicam on me and Quinn when the ladies’s group gained, we’d appear like the largest superfans of all time. We have been simply leaping up and down. We could not imagine it. And we locked in, stated goodbye as a result of… pic.twitter.com/41Z8PnEjnd
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
Fortunately, the fourth hour of Immediately (with Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones) introduced on Jim Hughes (and Ellen for a second go to) and fully prevented the pressured politics and smears. As an alternative, they requested them to speak about what their sons achieved and recommendation for folks elevating sons hoping they turn into as hard-working and patriotic as their boys:
THIS is how this USA Hockey discourse ought to go — NBC’s fourth hour of ‘Immediately with Jenna & Sheinelle’ introduced on Jim Hughes — father of Jack and Quinn Hughes — in addition to mother Ellen once more to speak about what their sons achieved in addition to the ladies’s group Ellen is within the entrance… pic.twitter.com/yP7ycH4Xtx
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
CBS Night Information anchor Tony Dokoupil closed Monday’s present with an apologetically pro-America commentary that was a distinction to the purposeful injection of partisanship into what must be a unifying second seemingly out of yesteryear.
Dokoupil instructed viewers that he noticed the group’s victory and postgame interviews “rang some kind of a bell in America” that “gave folks chills, goose bumps, made them cry even” and reminded us that, whereas “America is a sophisticated place,” it’s our “house and, due to this fact, straightforward to like” (click on “develop”):
WATCH: ‘CBS Night Information’ anchor @TonyDokoupil on how the gold-medal-winning males’s hockey group and their unabashed patriotism “rang some kind of a bell in America” that “gave folks chills, goose bumps, made them cry even” and reminded us that, whereas “America is a sophisticated… pic.twitter.com/FrfoQMaaU9
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 24, 2026
DOKOUPIL: Solely in America, a second that referred to as to thoughts an image of this nation that it seems thousands and thousands of us have been lacking. I’m speaking in fact about Sunday’s USA hockey recreation. The boys’s group gained its first Olympic gold and 46 years, beating Canada in extra time and, by now, you’ve seen the photographs of Jack Hughes, 24, Florida born who left blood on the ice fairly actually earlier than scoring the profitable purpose and telling a reporter by damaged enamel, “that is all about our nation proper now. I really like the USA.” 5,000 miles away, these feedback, as a lot because the win itself, rang some kind of a bell in America. It gave folks chills, goose bumps, made them cry even. Numerous lots took a social media to say precisely that and extra. It was the whole lot about this group. A bunch of men who performed Toby Keith within the locker room celebration, drank beers in the course of the postgame press convention, cheers to you guys, even thanked the troops in one other interview. Hughes was even patriotic in his commentary on American well being care.
JACK HUGHES: I’m fortunate I’m from one of the best nation on this planet and we bought nice dentists there too, so I’m fortunate I’m American.
DOKOUPIL: They have been gracious in victory and massive hearted too, bringing to the ice the kids of a teammate who was killed 18 months in the past by an alleged drunk driver. They have been, in brief, American and nothing about that truth appeared difficult for them, despite the fact that we’re all grown ups and we all know America is a sophisticated place. What they remind us is that it is usually house and, due to this fact, straightforward to like.
To see the related transcripts from January 24, click on right here (for ABC) and right here (for NBC).
