Trump says Nike is getting 'absolutely killed' after Kaepernick ad

Donald Trump. — (Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump slammed the NFL and Nike on Twitter on Wednesday morning, saying the sportswear company is getting "absolutely killed" for its new advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick.

Trump's tweet comes two days after Nike announced the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback as one of the faces of its 30th anniversary "Just Do It" ad campaign. The decision won the support of NBA star LeBron James — also a Nike athlete — who ended a speech Tuesday night by saying, "I stand with Nike, all day, every day," Bleacher Report writes. But the company has seen social media backlash since the Kaepernick announcement, with the hashtags #BoycottNike and #JustBurnIt trending on Twitter, Bloomberg reports.

Trump remained relatively quiet in the immediate aftermath of the ad announcement, but he told The Daily Caller on Tuesday that he thinks the ad sends a "terrible message." He has also consistently railed against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality — the movement Kaepernick started — calling them "sons of bitches" and saying they should be fired.

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Of course, it wasn't the protests that ultimately ruined football for Trump. Way back in 2014, the president blamed his "magnificent imagination" for making NFL games seem "boring." Marianne Dodson

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Marianne is The Weekâ€™s Social Media Editor. She is a native Tennessean and recent graduate of Ohio University, where she studied journalism and political science. Marianne has previously written for The Daily Beast, The Crime Report, and The Moroccan Times.