As free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick continues to wait for the phone to ring, his ears may have been burning.
Speaking at a rally in Louisville on Monday night, President Donald Trump took a shot at Kaepernick, who became a polarizing figure last year for not standing for the National Anthem.
“And you know, your San Francisco quarterback,” Trump said, via TMZ. “I’m sure nobody ever heard of him. I’m just reporting the news. There was an article today — I love to report the news and then they said I made a mistake, right? I said, ‘No, the people reporting the news made a mistake if it’s wrong.’ But there was an article today, it was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that? I just saw that. I just saw that. I said if I remember that one I’m gonna report it to the people of the Kentucky. Because they like it when people actually stand for the American flag.”
The report President Trump refers to emerged Friday, via Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report. Quoting an unnamed AFC General Manager, Freeman explained Kaepernick’s ongoing unemployment by pointing out that “some teams . . . think there might be protests or [President Donald] Trump will tweet about the team.”
These concerns overlook the fact that Kaepernick will no longer sit or kneel for the National Anthem. But that doesn’t matter; Kaepernick already is notorious among folks like those who attended Monday night’s rally and elsewhere as grossly unpatriotic.
And while President Trump seemed to be laughing off the report that he’d direct a “nasty tweet” to the owner of the team that signs Kaepernick, President Trump said nothing to suggest that he wouldn’t. If anything, the derisive reference to Kaepernick not standing for the Anthem proves that, if/when someone signs him, President Trump will have something to say about it.
In 140 characters or less.