NFL owner sells out Donald Trump under oath
Earlier this month the National Football League made the controversial decision to ban players from kneeling during the National Anthem. This came after the NFL collectively blackballed quarterback Colin Kaepernick from the league, because he was the first player to begin taking a knee in protest of racism. Now it turns out one NFL team owner has admitted under oath that Trump improperly leaned on the league with regard to the issue, and that Trump admitted he was doing so for personal political gain.
Kaepernick ended up suing the NFL for blackballing him, and that suit has been steadily moving forward. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was among those called to testify, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. He admitted that Trump told him “You can’t win this one,” implying that Trump would continue to publicly attack the NFL if it didn’t side with him and the racists. Jones also testified that Trump said to him, “This one lifts me.” So why is this such a big deal?
NFL team owners are billionaires who care first and foremost about their money. They’ve been struggling to figure out how to handle the kneeling controversy in a manner which costs them the least revenue. If the NFL sides with the players who are protesting against racism, it risks alienating racist viewers. If the NFL sides with Trump and the racists, it risks alienating mainstream Americans. There are ratings to be lost, sponsors to be boycotted, and a whole lot of money on the line.
It’s now clear that the NFL owners passed their recent anti-kneeling rule in direct response to Donald Trump’s private threats of retaliation. This means that the boycott against the NFL this upcoming season, which was already set to be widespread and costly, just graduated into being a direct protest against Trump. The NFL can expect to lose huge chunks of viewers who will tune out as a way of fighting against Trump and the horrifying things that he stands for. Team owners bet on the wrong horse when they sided with Trump, and now they’re about to pay for dearly for it in the wallet.
That is, of course, unless the NFL owners decide to pull back from their new anti-kneeling rule, now that they’ve been exposed as having been doing Trump’s racist bidding. As for Donald Trump’s threats of retaliation against the NFL, he appears to have violated multiple federal laws in the process. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has demonstrated thus far that he’s being overwhelmingly thorough when it comes to investigating and prosecuting all possible criminal charges against Trump and his underlings. Don’t be shocked if Mueller starts poking around into this mess as well. In the mean time, the NFL may have just suffered its worst day ever.
