During a speech in Alabama on Friday night, U.S. President Donald Trump told a roaring crowd that NFL players who kneel during the national anthem should be fired.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b***h off the field right now, out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’” said Trump.
Several NFL players, including the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, have taken to kneeling during the national anthem before games to protest unjust police killings of black men.
Trump later followed up with several tweets, reiterating his opinion on the issue.
Kaepernick was not signed by an NFL team for this season, a development that Trump took credit for earlier this year.
The Atlantic reports that this is the second time in several weeks that either the president or one of his officials has called for the removal of sports figures that expressed themselves in ways he didn’t agree with. ESPN anchor Jemele Hill found herself under fire by the president last week for describing him as a white supremacist in multiple tweets.
Trump later demanded an apology from Hill, and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later argued that the anchor should be fired for her criticism of the president.
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The Chicago Tribune reports that Trump also encouraged his supporters to leave the stadium the next time a player chooses not to stand during the national anthem.
The National Football League and its players’ union on Saturday, quickly denounced the president for making these statements.
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“Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players,” the league commissioner, Roger Goodell, said in a statement. DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, tweeted: “We will never back down. We no longer can afford to stick to sports.”
Smith said the union won’t shy away from “protecting the constitutional rights of our players as citizens as well as their safety as men who compete in a game that exposes them to great risks.”
The players’ union released a statement denouncing Trump’s claims.
“No man or woman should ever have to choose a job that forces them to surrender their rights. No worker nor any athlete, professional or not, should be forced to become less than human when it comes to protecting their basic health and safety,” the statement read.
The NFLPA also added that “the line that marks the balance between the rights of every citizen in our great country gets crossed when someone is told to just ‘shut up and play.”‘
— With files from the Associated Press