Ex-NFL second-string quarterback Colin Kaepernick is accusing Donald Trump of “targeting” and “minimizing” him after he refused to stand for the national anthem starting during the 2016 NFL season.
The radical anti-police activist appeared on the Wall Street Journal’s podcast, The Future of Everything, and recalled his final season in the league and the pressure he came under from patriotic Americans who did not like his anti-American protests, including the then newly-elected president.
Indeed, during a rally in March 2017, Trump even joked that Kaepernick did not get re-signed to a team because the NFL owners didn’t want to be the subject of one of Trump’s tweets.
“They don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that?” Trump said in Louisville, according to Fox News.
The former president and current GOP candidate for president again spoke about the national anthem issue often in 2016 and 2017 as Kaepernick’s anti-American protests spread across the league like the plague.
During his WSJ podcast appearance, Kaepernick talked of that time and decried Trump’s focus on the protests against our flag, our history, our soldiers, our system, and our police.
“I think one of the key elements that is important to think about in relation to that moment is what does it actually mean to at that point have a then-sitting president being willing to target an individual citizen and using the power of their office, the power of their influence, to be able to try to minimize an individual and their aspirations,” Kaepernick complained.
“So, thinking back to that moment, I also think, plays really prevalent into where we are at today and the future that we decide to build together,” Kaepernick continued.
The former NFL player went on to talk of the riots that swept the country after the police-involved death of convict and drug addict George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
“I think the fundamental piece of it is, should people be able to live a better life, and should people be able to live without the threat of death? I think that fundamentally is the basis of this, and, if we take it a step further, should people be discriminated against because of the color of their skin or because of their religion or because of where they live or because of their socioeconomic status?” Kaepernick bloviated.
Kaepernick settled out of court with the NFL over his grievance claim in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, but he has not been signed to play again since he tried to go as a free agent in 2017. Despite his claims that he is physically still in top condition and ready to play, he also compared the NFL to a “slave market” for how it chooses and trains new players.
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