While discussing the NFL National Anthem protests and President Trump’s statements about them on Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the show’s hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski argued Trump only understands “the worst” of the US and “is putting this country in a horrible place.”
Former Democratic Congressman Harold Ford stated the players had the right to protest, and it was “odd” that the president couldn’t find anything good about players talking about social justice.
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson expressed surprise at the vigor with which NFL owners came out in defense of their players’ rights to protest.
Veteran columnist Mike Barnicle said Trump came “perilously close to race-baiting,” and spent the weekend “majoring in division of this country, rather than bringing the country together.”
Scarborough stated that Trump “understands the worst of America. He doesn’t understand the best of America.” He added that Trump knows how to “bait” people, both on racial and political grounds. Scarborough later argued, “[T]he most grotesque part of this is, Donald Trump has now been equated with the American flag. So, a protest against the American flag is now — was yesterday a protest against Donald Trump.”
NBC Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin said there is a “real and serious” debate over player’s protesting during the National Anthem, and Trump does have those who support him in that debate. He continued that when Trump “escalates it to impugning people in the league who are expressing their First Amendment rights, it’s not what presidents normally do. And it leaves the country in a horrible place. It puts politics into sports in a way that isn’t good for anyone.”
Brzezinski declared, “[T]he president is putting this country in a horrible place. And if you have any question in your mind as to whether or not he is race-baiting at a certain point and time, just think of Charlottesville.”
(h/t Grabien)
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