President Donald Trump couldn’t let kneeling players kneel. For Trump, the players protesting the over-policing of black communities became political points for him to hold up as examples of turncoats who don’t honor the American flag. He called them “sons of bitches,” urged NFL owners to fire players who refused to stand for the national anthem and even sent his lackey Vice President Mike Pence to an NFL game, only for him to leave the game once players kneeled during the anthem.
Since the president has wedged his blindingly white ass into this issue that didn’t concern him, it’s fitting that whiteballed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s legal team is “expected to seek federal subpoenas in the coming weeks to compel testimony from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other officials familiar with the president’s agenda on protesting NFL players,” Yahoo! News reports.
Kaepernick’s legal team will have to convince arbitrators and a federal judge that Trump influenced NFL owners not to employ Kaepernick.
This shouldn’t be hard; I would just present this video as exhibit A:
Exhibit B would be Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who noted that he supported the players’ right to protest until Trump started pointing his KFC-grease-stained tiny fingers into the situation.
“I think initially I totally supported the players in what they were doing, because it’s America—people should be able to really speak about their choices and show them [in] doing that,” Ross told the New York Daily News in March. “But I think when you change the message, about is it support of our country or the military, it’s a different message. When that message changed, and everybody was interpreting it as that was the reason, then I was against the kneeling.”
Ross added: “[Trump’s] message became what kneeling was all about. From that standpoint, that’s the way the public is interpreting it. So I think that’s really incumbent upon us to adopt that, because that’s how I think the country is now interpreting the kneeling issue.”
Exhibit C can be the March 2017 meeting between Trump and Patriots owner (and big-time Trump supporter) Robert Kraft aboard Air Force One. The next day, Trump gave the following speech: “Your San Francisco quarterback, I’m sure nobody ever heard of him. … There was an article today that was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that? I just saw that. I just saw that,” Sporting News reports.
Exhibit D is Ross’ testimony in Kap’s grievance case, which noted that Kraft told him that he spoke with Trump about players kneeling. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones also testified that Trump told him in a phone call that his berating of kneeling players was a winning issue.
“This is a very winning, strong issue for me. Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me,” Trump reportedly told Jones, according to Sporting News.
It makes sense that Kaepernick’s legal team would want to get the president on record, since he insisted on sticking his white-man lace-front where it didn’t belong. But even though Kap’s team wants to subpoena Trump—and even if the subpoena is granted—it’s unclear whether Trump would “honor the motion or actively refuse to be deposed,” Sporting News reports.