Religious Right radio host Sandy Rios claimed that liberal activists receive immense pleasure in “destroying institutions like the” National Football League (NFL) because “it is a power base that they cannot allow to exist” because it forms “too many patriotic notions.”

On this morning’s edition of “Sandy Rios in the Morning,” callers spoke with Rios about football players who have demonstrated solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who started kneeling during pre-game performances of the national anthem last year to protest police brutality against people of color. Rios responded to one caller by accusing players of not understanding what the national anthem represents.

“The very thing that those players say they are protesting is what that flag represents. Does it still stand? And how dare they diss that flag. And the ignorance that they display by doing that is part of the problem,” Rios said.

“They don’t understand. They’ve been taught that America is this horrible, racist country that’s oppressed millions,” Rios said. “They’re not taught the true history of this country.”

Rios went on to blame the NFL players’ supposed misunderstanding of what the flag represents on “a situation where the left is successfully dividing us.” Rios argued that while some have called President Donald Trump divisive for his attacks on players like Kaepernick, “it’s the left that delights and glories in destroying institutions like the NFL.”

The left is destroying the NFL, Rios theorized, because “it is a power base that they cannot allow to exist” and the left seeks to “take power.”

“Too many people are attached” to football, Rios said. “It forms too many patriotic notions. And what the left does, communism does, is destroy and undermine every personal connection from mother, father, family—separate you from all the things that you know, get rid of any kind of country identification, language identification, so that you will be dependent on government.”