Pure American dominance. 💥🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/nvgWLar2ak
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026
On Friday, the Trump White House tweeted a video featuring legendary, home run-hitting baseball players, including Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Alex Rodriguez. After each play hit a home run, the Trump White House inserted a video of an Iranian target being bombed.
Written above the Trump Administration’s video of home runs and Iranian bombing was the phrase "Pure American Dominance.” Trump’s video plays off the quotes given by Pittsburgh Pirates Paul Skenes, winner of the 2025 NL Cy Young Award, who said earlier this week that "We're America, we've got to assert our dominance over everybody else.”
With Skenes, who attended the Air Force Academy before transferring to LSU, set to pitch for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, the quote went viral on Fox News. It became a meme after it was widely circulated by Skene's Trump-supporting girlfriend, Livvy Dunne, a former star Louisiana State gymnast, who has over 10 million followers on social media.
Recently, Skenes and Dunne made headlines as they watched the national championship football game between LSU and Indiana with Donald Trump. On Friday, as Team USA kicked off its first game of the World Baseball Classic against Brasil, Trump tweeted out a video about American dominance that equated winning baseball games with bombing Iran.
Many baseball fans have called out Skenes for his militaristic statements. However, Skenes has remained unapologetic in his support for the U.S.’s bombing of Iran.
Earlier this week, Skenes doubled down on his statements in an interview with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.
“We’re doing it to represent the men and women that are fighting for us, along with many other things that make this country the greatest country in the world,” Skenes told The Athletic.
The 23-year-old pitcher then claimed that Americans don’t respect the U.S. military enough.
“This is the greatest country in the world. That’s what I believe. That’s why I wanted to serve, why I went to the Air Force Academy. And those folks don’t get the recognition they deserve,” Skenes told The Athletic.
By Friday afternoon, the Trump White House was playing off of the social media energy about the World Baseball Classic by promoting Skene's words about baseball representing American dominance to associate hitting home runs with bombing Iran.
Bob Ross, a local Pittsburgh baseball writer, was dismayed by the tweet and sent it to me. For more than a decade, Ross, who teaches social justice at Point Park University, has written against “sportswashing,” the practice where politicians like Trump use sports to push right-wing policies.
