President Trump again
Some symbolic acts seen before preseason games
blasted NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, signaling a third straight season in which he’s leveled criticism.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was quick to respond to the first player protests of the new football season, tweeting Friday morning that “the NFL players are at it again” after a few teams’ members knelt or performed other symbolic acts during the national anthem before preseason games Thursday night.
By his two tweets, the president signaled that for a third straight season, he would stoke the divisive issue he first fanned as a candidate just before the 2016 election.
Trump ignored the complaints of racial injustice and police brutality that many African-American players have sought to highlight by kneeling during the pre-game anthem, and their free-speech rights.
The president often has falsely suggested the players are protesting against the anthem, the American flag and the U.S. military.
In his latest attack, he portrayed them as ungrateful for the opportunity to play in the NFL. He also exaggerated their overall share of league proceeds.
“The NFL players are at it again — taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the National Anthem,” Trump tweeted. “Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their ‘outrage’ at something that most of them are unable to define. They make a fortune doing what they love ...... ”
His second tweet continued: “.... Be happy, be cool! A football game, that fans are paying soooo much money to watch and enjoy, is no place to protest. Most of that money goes to the players anyway. Find another way to protest. Stand proudly for your National Anthem or be Suspended Without Pay!”
At a time when the president faces a range of political and legal controversies, the new NFL season brings Trump an opportunity to heighten attention to his ongoing feud with the African-American players, a wedge issue that animates a number of his white voters heading into the November midterm elections.
His latest tweets also come as the president has been facing renewed accusations of racism.
He drew criticism last weekend after a tweet in which he attacked two prominent African-Americans, NBA star LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and CNN anchor Don Lemon, as dumb.
Reports on Friday by the Washington Post and the Guardian said that former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman, in her forthcoming memoir, asserts that Trump has used racial slurs. She writes that Trump is a “racist, misogynist and bigot,” according to the Post, which said it had access to excerpts of the book and to recordings Manigault-Newman made during her stint in the White House.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in a statement about the book, called it “riddled with lies and false accusations” by “a disgruntled former White House employee … trying to profit off these false attacks.”
Trump’s latest outburst against African-American football players comes on the one-year anniversary of a violent clash between white nationalists and antiracism counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., that is most remembered for his controversial response.
Trump was widely assailed, including by Republican officials and business associates, when he initially declined to condemn the racists and then blamed people “on both sides” after a neo-Nazi drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a 32year-old woman.
White nationalists are planning to commemorate the Charlottesville rally with a “Unite the Right” rally in Washington’s Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House, on Sunday.