Washington (CNN) Philadelphia Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is getting the upper hand on the National Football League in a manufactured fight with his hometown Eagles.

"I think that this is all a stunt," Kenney said. "And I think that the President is playing the NFL like a fiddle and these players are caught in the middle."

Kenney, speaking on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront," said none of the Eagles knelt during the regular season or postseason during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice, nor did they sit out the anthem in their locker room.

"He's making it up as he goes along in an effort to divide this country more than he has already," Kenney said of Trump.

Kenney said he stands at attention with his hand over his heart during the anthem, but that he does so as "a white man with privilege," and that others without the same privilege reacted differently. He continued to say that Trump's constant refrain against the kneeling protest was a rejection of First Amendment principles.

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