{"id":119256,"date":"2017-09-24T21:23:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T01:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=119256"},"modified":"2017-09-24T21:23:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T01:23:30","slug":"trump-objection-to-protests-has-nothing-to-do-with-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/24\/trump-objection-to-protests-has-nothing-to-do-with-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump: Objection to protests “has nothing to do with race”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: President Donald Trump (Photo by Gage Skidmore\/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MORRISTOWN, N.J. \u2014 President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that his opposition to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality \u201chas nothing to do with race\u201d but has to do with \u201crespect for our country and respect for our flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, who inflamed the sports world on Friday by saying players who protest police brutality during the Star Spangled Banner by refusing to stand or conducting other acts of defiance should be fired, reiterated Sunday that owners \u201cshould do something\u201d about the protests.<\/p>\n

Trump, as he prepared to board Air Force One to return to Washington from New Jersey on Sunday, said he didn’t think his comments Friday on players being fired or since have inflamed racial tensions. Trump said the players protesting the anthem were \u201cvery disrespectful to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the kneeling movement last year when he played for the San Francisco 49ers, refusing to stand during \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner\u201d to protest the treatment of black people by police. Kaepernick became a free agent and has not been signed by a new team for this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has nothing to do with race. I’ve never said anything about race,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThis has nothing to do with race or anything else. This has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said he was not watching NFL games on Sunday \u2014 \u201cBelieve me, I’m doing other things,\u201d he said \u2014 but said he watched a little bit and \u201cI will say there was tremendous solidarity for our flag and for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the president’s comments on Friday, more than 100 NFL players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance during the national anthem on Sunday. Several NFL owners also condemned Trump’s statement, including ally Robert Kraft, owner of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, who expressed \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d with Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Bob very much. He’s my friend. He gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago. So he’s a good friend of mine and I want him to do what he wants to do,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe have a great country. We have great people representing our country, especially our soldiers our first responders and they should be treated with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MORRISTOWN, N.J. \u2014 President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that his opposition to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":118978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16],"tags":[1058],"class_list":["post-119256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","tag-trump","mauthors-catherine-lucey","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}