If you think Fox & Friends is crazy, it’s quite possible you’ve never seen Fox & Friends Weekend.
On Sunday, Donald Trump’s favorite show’s B team offered up a vigorous defense of the president’s recent attacks on NFL players and denounced the #TakeTheKnee protests that have already ramped up in a major way this morning.
After reading Trump’s latest Twitter threats on the issue, host Pete Hegseth said the president was “effectively calling for a fan boycott of NFL,” because those who attend games or watch on TV “enable this kind of activity.”
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“Of course, this is all premised on the fact that everyone says Donald Trump is a racist,” Hegseth added. “So if you have a white supremacist in the White House, then you have free rein to do whatever you want, everyone should take a knee. This is a cultural battle right now.”
If he hadn’t been speaking sarcastically, he could have been making a pretty good case for the player protests.
In response to Oakland A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell, who became the first MLB player to kneel during the national anthem Saturday night, Hegseth complained, “It’s infected the NFL and the NBA and and now we see it happen in Major League Baseball.” Abby Huntsman, meanwhile, wondered aloud if the cameras would show the kneeling players on Sunday or train their focus on the American flag instead.
“Look at those 12 teams immediately putting out a statement calling the president’s statement divisive!” Hegseth added. “And you have to ask, what are we kneeling for at this point? Because you talk about social injustice. This is the least sexist, least racist, most free, most equal, most prosperous country in the history of humankind.”
“That’s the divisive action, taking a knee,” he said. “As opposed to have a civil conversation.”
