Lunacy: Boot kneelers

PRESIDENT TRUMP took his attacks on the First Amendment to a new level Thursday, suggesting NFL players “shouldn’t be in the country” if they insist on peacefully protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem.

Trump drew scathing criticism for the remark, which came in response to the NFL’s announcement Wednesday that teams whose players do not stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner” will be fined. The new policy allows players to remain in the locker room during the playing of the an- them.

“Well, I think that’s good,” Trump said of the policy shift during an early morning appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “I don’t think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it’s good. You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country. You have to stand proudly for the national anthem, and the NFL owners did the right thing if that’s what they’ve done.”

NFL talk show host Benjamin Allbright blasted Trump as an “idiot.”

“It violates the First Amendment,” Allbright tweeted of the new anthem policy. “If you truly don’t want people kneeling, solve their root issues & they’ll want to stand.”

University of Miami professor Rula Jebreal likened Trump to a slave-owner.

“POTUS showing his true colors again,” Jebreal tweeted. “‘Freedom’ in the cotton fields, where if you speak up . . . You are told to go back to Africa.”

When Trump entered the polarizing anthem debate last September, he inflamed the issue to unprecedented proportions.

He called any protesting player a “son of a bitch” who should be fired from his job, which prompted dozens more players to join the demonstrations started by thenSan Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2016.

Kaepernick, who is not cur-