President Donald Trump is “critical” of sportswear behemoth Nike’s deal to use NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the face of its 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign. But he’s apparently not going to go ballistic, at least not yet.
The President says there’s “no reason” for Nike to use Kaepernick, who has started a movement of athletes silently protesting the police killings of young Black men an teens by police. Trump is vehemently opposed to the protests, so much so he convinced the NFL to ban them. He’s also attacked the players who kneel in protest, going so far as to call Kaepernick a “son of a bitch.”
“I think it’s a terrible message that they’re sending and the purpose of them doing it, maybe there’s a reason for them doing it,” Trump told right wing website, The Daily Caller, “but I think as far as sending a message, I think it’s a terrible message and a message that shouldn’t be sent. There’s no reason for it.”
“I disagree with the Colin Kaepernick endorsement, in another way — I mean, I wouldn’t have done it,” Trump added.
But he’s stopping short of going nuclear against the company, and he explained it as a financial decision.
“Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent,” Trump said. There is a large Nike Town store in his Manhattan Trump Tower. For now.
To Trump, the players protesting is “disrespect of our Country.”
But also to Trump, Nike using Kaepernick is a business decision, and having the right to make that decision makes America great.
“Trump acknowledged that it’s Nike’s right to make its own business decisions,” The Daily Caller states.
“In another way,” Trump said, “it is what this country is all about, that you have certain freedoms to do things that other people think you shouldn’t do, but I personally am on a different side of it.”
Image by Mattia Panciroli via Flickr and a CC license