Trump thanks Cowboys’ Jones for support that wasn’t actually offered

CINDY BOREN AND J. FREEDOM DU LAC Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones remains adamant that players on his team will stand for the national anthem but said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “interest in what we’re doing is problematic.”

That, however, didn’t stop Trump from saluting Jones.

“Way to go Jerry. This is what the league should do!” Trump tweeted Friday.

As Cowboys players reported to training camp in Oxnard, Calif., days earlier, Jones held forth in a news conference in which he admitted that, like most people, he wished the anthem controversy “would go away.”

“(Trump’s) interest in what we’re doing is problematic, from my chair, and I would say in general the owners’ chair,” Jones said Wednesday. “It’s unprecedented, if you really think about it. But like the very game itself, that’s the way it is and we’ll deal with it.

“We feel strongly about how we deal with it and we’ll do so accordingly, but, yes, I, like everybody, would like for it to go away.”

The owner’s son, Stephen Jones, suggested Thursday that Dallas players who don’t stand for the anthem might be cut.

Players took a knee or raised a fist during the playing of the national anthem last season, doing so to raise awareness of police brutality and social injustice.