Donald Trump riled up the entire sports world over the weekend when he was critical of those in two of the biggest sports leagues in the country. He called former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick a “son of a bitch” and abruptly uninvited the Golden State Warriors from visiting the White House.
Trump’s actions and words disappointed many, including a lot of current and former players. But even broadcasters of the sport seemed worried by Trump. NBC Sports broadcaster and Sunday Night Football host Bob Costas joined CNN on Monday morning and spoke about his view of Trump’s critical stance against athletes who silently protested by kneeling during the National Anthem on Sunday.
Costas said that Trump knows how to “stir people’s emotions and resentments,” calling it a “business plan” for some and noted it’s how he ran his campaign.
"Do you want a President who is so tone deaf to the racial implications of this?" asks Sports broadcaster Bob Costas https://t.co/D2AuoOehGJ
— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) September 25, 2017
“To give him the extreme benefit of the doubt — the extreme benefit of the doubt — you’d say he’s insensitive to the racial implications,” Costas said. “But do you want a president of the United States who, even if you’re giving him the benefit of the doubt, is so tone deaf to the racial implications of this?”
On Monday, Trump again tweeted that kneeling to protest the National Anthem has nothing to do with race. But Costas disagreed with the president, citing Kaepernick’s initial protest and the ethnic makeup of those that made the protests go viral throughout the NFL.
“Seventy percent of the players in the NFL, roughly, are African American. Virtually every player who knelt in the initial stages were black, and the initial impetus from this or for it came from Colin Kaepernick and it was about police brutality and mistreatment of African Americans. You can’t separate those two things.”
Costas made it clear that Trump’s misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of the protest has only made him look bad here.
“The idea that this doesn’t have something to do with race,” Costas said, “is preposterous.”
