Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is criticizing President Trump for his attacks on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.

"No matter how many times a football player says, 'I honor our military, but I'm protesting police brutality and racial inequality,' it doesn't matter,” Kerr said in an interview on Saturday with ESPN. “Nationalists are saying, 'You're disrespecting our flag.' Well, you know what else is disrespectful to our flag? Racism. And one's way worse than the other."

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Kerr, whose team announced Saturday it would not visit the White House following its recent NBA championship, said it was “far-fetched” to expect civil discourse with Trump.

"The idea of civil discourse with a guy who is tweeting and demeaning people and saying the things he's saying is sort of far-fetched," Kerr told ESPN. "Can you picture us really having a civil discourse with him?"

Trump suddenly withdrew Warriors star Stephen Curry’s invitation to the White House in a tweet early Saturday morning after Curry told reporters last week he didn’t want to visit the White House.

The Warriors said in a statement later in the day that they would not visit the White House and instead use the trip to Washington, D.C. to “celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion,” values they “embrace as an organization.”



Kerr said the team hoped to use their visit with Trump to speak about issues that Warriors players and officials were concerned about.

“He's a public servant. He may not be aware of that, but he is a public servant, right?” Kerr told ESPN. “So maybe as NBA champions, as people in a prominent position, we could go in and say, 'This is what's bothering us, what can we do about this?'"

Trump has doubled down on his feud with professional athletes in recent days after remarks at a rally for Sen. Luther Strange Luther Johnson StrangeSessions hits back at Trump days ahead of Alabama Senate runoff The biggest political upsets of the decade State 'certificate of need' laws need to go MORE (R-Ala.) on Friday.

At the rally, Trump said NFL fans should leave games if players kneel during the national anthem and called on NFL owners to fire players who take a knee.

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b---- off the field right now,'" Trump said, adding, "'He is fired.'"