{"id":274932,"date":"2018-05-29T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=274932"},"modified":"2018-05-30T15:39:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T19:39:00","slug":"trump-beat-the-nfl-and-the-media-went-bonkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/05\/29\/trump-beat-the-nfl-and-the-media-went-bonkers\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Beat the NFL and the Media Went Bonkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Grab sound bites 3 and 4, maybe 5. Yeah, 3, 4, 5, 6. I want to clean up some things from last week when the NFL announced its new policy for the national anthem. Players on the field must stand rather than kneel. They can\u2019t kneel. There will be penalties and fines if they do. The NFL said players can stay in the locker room, but if they come out — if they\u2019re on the field during pregame during the anthem — they have to stand up.<\/p>\n

And I said that this is gonna cause a veritable breakdown later today and in the ensuing days on ESPN SportsCenter<\/a>. The sports media is gonna go bonkers, gaga. They\u2019re gonna lose it over this — and, in fact, they did. We start last Thursday going through Sunday, a montage of sports reporters from all over the place. NBC, ESPN, ABC, the Washington Post…<\/p>\n

\"\"CHRIS SIMMS: It bothers me. Donald Trump and Mike Pence, #Winning.<\/p>\n

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: (echo) Trump has turned everything upside down. (stammers) It\u2019s truly unbelievable that the owners then sided with him.<\/p>\n

CHRIS CANTY: The owners are essentially acquiescin\u2019 to exactly what our president wanted.<\/p>\n

ROBIN ROBERTS: They are not being disrespectful to the flag. That is not the intent of those protests. How many times must it be said?<\/p>\n

MICHAEL KAY: President Trump has a very solid base. The NFL owners are running scared of that.<\/p>\n

WESLEY LOWERY: The teams caved to two pressure points, the president of the United States and their own fan bases.<\/p>\n

EUGENE ROBINSON: The owners decided they did not want to be harangued by the president of the United States every week.<\/p>\n

RUSH: What did…? Did you notice this guy Wesley Lowery? He is with Washington Post. “Teams caved to two pressure points: The president and their own fan base.” How dare they cave to the fan base? (chuckles) These journalists are livid that the NFL would cave to the fan base. They\u2019re also livid that the NFL owners would cave to Trump. You know, these people on the left still will not admit that these kneeling protests of the United States flag are one of the reasons why ratings have been down so significantly. They continue to deny this.<\/p>\n

They think the games have been lousy. They think it was injuries to star quarterbacks, the length of time it takes to play the game… That stuff hasn\u2019t changed. There have always been injuries to stars. NFL games have always taken three to 3-1\/2 hours. Depending on the season, you have some teams that are terrible and don\u2019t get any better, but that\u2019s percentage-wise pretty consistent season to season. The one thing, the one thing that was new that accompanied the massive decline in TV ratings and attendance was the players looking like they were protesting the country, protesting the flag.<\/p>\n

\"\"And the American people who watched the game didn\u2019t want to put up with it; they didn\u2019t want to see it. To hell with it. They\u2019re bombarded with all of this hate. They\u2019re bombarded with it whenever they turn on the news. They\u2019re bombarded with it whenever they watch television shows or go to the movies. And they\u2019re sick of it! They\u2019re sick of being bombarded by people who hate America, who don\u2019t like America, who think America is guilty or what have you. And these people in sports journalism look at that and say, “Ah, that had nothing to do with it!<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s not why their ratings are down.” So now the owners are “caving” to the fans. That\u2019s essentially saying they\u2019re caving to their customers. You know, this would not be an issue if they would have done this the first week. Now there\u2019s some kind of a threat out there. There\u2019s this reporter named Shaun King who is actually one of the big wigs in Black Lives Matter, and he\u2019s trying to rev up a football-star boycott of the season unless Colin Kaepernick gets hired.<\/p>\n

He was the first player to kneel during the anthem, the so-called quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers — and Eric Reid, a teammate of his — and these two guys have not been picked up. They\u2019re not currently on rosters, and this guy King is demanding that stars, and he says he\u2019s got a lot of them. He\u2019s gonna boycott the whole season until these two guys are hired. So we\u2019ll see what happens with that. Here\u2019s Trump reacting to it. Thursday morning, he was on Fox & Friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

THE PRESIDENT: I think that\u2019s good. I don\u2019t think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it\u2019s good. You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn\u2019t be playing. You shouldn\u2019t be there. Maybe you shouldn\u2019t be in the country. You have to stand proudly for the national anthem, and the NFL owners did the right thing if that\u2019s what they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

RUSH: “Maybe you shouldn\u2019t be in the country.” Fast forward to sound bite No. 6, the Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin.<\/p>\n

BALDWIN: (garbled hum) He\u2019s an idiot, plain and simple. I mean, listen, you know, I respect the man, uh, because he\u2019s a human being, you know, first and foremost. But he\u2019s just being more divisive, which is not surprising. It is what it is. Uh, you know, but for him to say that anybody who doesn\u2019t, uh, follow his viewpoints or his constituents\u2019 viewpoints should be kicked out of the country, you know, it\u2019s just… It\u2019s not very empathetic, not very American. It —<\/p>\n

RUSH: “Not very empathetic”? Whoa! Stop it. Were you able to hear that? That\u2019s the craziest… That\u2019s the weirdest audio I\u2019ve heard. Were you able to hear that? (interruption) It was not only low, it sounds like he\u2019s 15,000 miles away from the microphone. Let me read to you what this guy said. He said, Trump is an idiot, plain and simple. I mean, listen, you know, I respect the man, because he\u2019s a human being, you know, first and foremost. But he\u2019s just being more divisive, which is not surprising. It is what it is. Uh, you know, but for him to say that anybody who doesn\u2019t follow his viewpoints or his constituents\u2019 viewpoints, you know, should be kicked out of the country, it\u2019s just…”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what Trump said. Trump didn\u2019t say anybody should be kicked out of the country if they disagree with his viewpoints! (laughing) Where did this guy…? I don\u2019t think Doug Baldwin heard Trump or read Trump\u2019s tweet. I think Doug Baldwin probably heard somebody say… This is how these things get started. Somebody said something and somebody repeats it and by the time it gets to the fifth person, you can\u2019t recognize it. “You know, but for him to say that anybody who doesn\u2019t follow his viewpoints or his constituents\u2019 viewpoints, you know, should be kicked out of the country, it\u2019s not very empathetic. It\u2019s not very American like, actually, to me, not very patriotic.”<\/p>\n

Well, he didn\u2019t say it.<\/p>\n

Now here\u2019s Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, on Meet the Press…<\/p>\n

MITCHELL: The hypocrisy is so profound. Take a look at any NFL stadium and people are getting hot dogs. People are getting beers.<\/p>\n

MAN: (snickering) Right.<\/p>\n

MITCHELL: They\u2019re not standing and saluting the anthem for a large part. They\u2019re not. They\u2019re distracted. They\u2019re fans at an event. And the fact that the players do not have this freedom of speech and that no one is even thinking about Colin Kaepernick, who\u2019s lost his entire career over this issue, who has been, you know, basically blackballed and can\u2019t be hired. Uh, it\u2019s just outrageous.<\/p>\n