CNN’s New Day took on President Donald Trump’s latest criticism of NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of police brutality, which aired on Fox & Friends Thursday morning.
Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon remarked on Trump’s comment from the interview that the NFL owners are “afraid” of their players, noting “he’s effectively trolling the owners, and it’s the language he understands of fear and goading.”
“But maybe even uglier than that,” CNN’s Chris Cuomo said. “It does sound a little bit — and obviously you can come at me on Twitter for this — like he’s saying: ‘Control your dog. Control your dog,’ to the owners.”
“I’m trying to map it here,” Cuomo continued. “They’re his friends, the owners, okay. To his friends, he creates a false issue, which puts them in a huge bind.”
“Then, he says ‘Well, I feel bad about what’s happening there with these guys’ — which clearly he does not, because he created this issue to foment political tension. And now he says they’re fearful of the players, so he is setting up the ugliest kind of tension you can.”
“He seems to feel his core job is to enflame culture wars,” Avlon added. “To distract, and not actually do
“But it is divisive and it is a distraction,” Avlon concluded.
[image via screengrab]
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