President Donald Trump said that the NFL should have suspended Colin Kaepernick when he first decided to sit out for the national anthem.
“Frankly the NFL should have suspended him for one game and he would have never done it again,” Trump said, proposing additional suspensions for the player until he changed his mind.
Trump made his remarks in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
He said that Kaepernick’s protest was “terrible,” and that it “mushroomed” after the NFL did nothing to stop it.
“I will tell you cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem,” he said. “You cannot do that.”
Trump referred to the controversy during his speech in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
“I think people forgot how patriotic we are. I think people forgot how much we love our country,” he said. “They’ve learned over the last week, haven’t they?”