Trump on Kaepernick: 'Get that son of a bitch off the field'

President Trump speaks in Alabama

President Trump issued a profane call to NFL team owners to fire players who engage in peaceful political protest on the field while speaking Friday night at an Alabama rally for Sen. Luther Strange (R). "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now?'" Trump asked his audience. "Out. He's fired. He's fired." The rally crowd responded with cheers.

"You know what's hurting the game?" the president continued. "When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they're playing our great national anthem." Trump encouraged his supporters to walk out of the stadium in counter-protest should they ever observe an NFL player's protest in person.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Trump's comments were widely decried, including by other NFL players, with many noting his words for Kaepernick were harsher than his responses to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The NFL Players Association issued a statement Saturday vowing to "never back down when it comes to protecting the constitutional rights of our players as citizens as well as their safety."

Watch an excerpt of Trump's comments below, or see the entire speech here. Bonnie Kristian

Editor's note: This article originally incorrectly identified Kaepernick's former team. It has since been corrected. We regret the error.

Explore More
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.