NBC sports reporter Bob Costas assumed the role of political commentator Monday when he praised Colin Kaepernick and called out President Donald Trump on CNN’s “New Day.”
“It’s very clear that there’s almost no one in the NFL who wants to support or rationalize the tone and content of President Trump’s remarks,” he said. “I hope others follow Kapernick’s lead. Not in some of the naive political statements he’s occasionally made, but getting involved in the community and actually doing things. Which many NFL players already do, but it’s just not spotlighted.”
Costas said he supported the decision by the Pittsburgh Steelers to stay in the locker room during the national anthem to avoid putting political pressure on their players.
“I was okay with it and I think what Mike Tomlin said, the coach of the Steelers made a lot of sense. We don’t want our players to have to choose. They may feel one way they may feel another, they may be apolitical. So we’ll stay off,” Costas said.
He said Trump’s statement offended players “across the board” and felt the president’s words were divisive and out of line, likening them to his remarks on Charlottesville.
“When you call people sons of bitches across the board, that offends everybody. White and black they’ve stood shoulder to shoulder on those fields, in those locker rooms. What kind of a statement is that to make,” he said. “I don’t think its irrelevant that clearly the president had more passion and conviction for those remarks than he did when he finally got around, after equivocating, to distancing himself to some extent from white nationalists and neo-Nazis. He clearly had more fervor for this, than for that,” Costas concluded.
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