In the wake of President Trump’s comments about professional athletes kneeling during the National Anthem, sports commentator Charles Barkley appeared on CBS’s NFL Today where he attacked Trump supporters in his home state of Alabama shortly before kickoff on Sunday.
Trump’s original comments on NFL players kneeling came during a campaign rally for Alabama Senator Luther Strange. To thunderous applause, Trump told the crowd that he wished NFL owners would say: “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now.” The president later followed that up with a series of tweets that garnered much media attention.
Along with finding Trump’s comments “100 percent inappropriate,” Barkley condemned Alabama Trump supporters. “I am embarrassed because he said the speech in Alabama and got a rousing reception when he said those things. So, it hurts me that those ignorant folks in Alabama would applaud something so stupid,” he spat.
While completely missing his hypocrisy, Barkley argued that “we got to figure how we can go back in our communities and make a difference. We can't be saying negative things on Twitter that only escalates to the stupidity.”
So, only negative things said on Twitter escalate the stupidity and not national television?
“We got—myself included,” he abruptly added. But it’s unclear if he was talking about his tweets or about his comments shortly before. “We got to find a way to go back in our communities and raise up our communities”
That’s kind of hard to do when you’re calling them ignorant.
Transcript below:
CBS
NFL Today
September 24, 2017
12:04:32 PM Eastern(…)
CHARLES BARKLEY: Well, number one, the President of the United States should never use the words S.O.B. That’s just 100 percent inappropriate. I am embarrassed because he said the speech in Alabama and got a rousing reception when he said those things. So, it hurts me that those ignorant folks in Alabama would applaud something so stupid. But the President of the United States should never use the words S.O.B. He’s the President of the United States.
But let me say this. We as players got to figure out what to do next. We’ve got to stop worrying about who’s kneeling. We’ve got to worry about who’s not kneeling. We got to figure how we can go back in our communities and make a difference. We can't be saying negative things on Twitter that only escalates to the stupidity. We got—myself included. We make more money than 99.9 percent of the people in the world. We got to find a way to go back in our communities and raise up our communities. Let's don't worry about who’s kneeling than things like that.
(…)
