Trump warns the NFL’s business ‘is gonna go to hell’ if protests continue

The NFL is “in a really bad box,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday, warning that the professional football league risks going “to hell” if it doesn’t bar its players from protesting during the national anthem.

“I think the NFL is in a box. I think they’re in a really bad box,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “You look at what’s happening with their ratings, you look at what’s going on — I mean, frankly, the only thing that’s doing well in the NFL is the pregame because everybody wants to see what’s going on.”


Trump's feud with the NFL has persisted since Friday, when the president told a crowd of supporters at an Alabama rally that if players kneel during the anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality, team owners should say in response, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now,” and fire them.

Trump’s divisive comments were widely condemned by the NFL, the NBA and some of the leagues’ top athletes, coaches and owners. Many NFL players continued to kneel during the anthem after Trump’s comments, while some teams locked arms to show solidarity and others stayed inside the locker room.

The president has since encouraged a boycott and urged the NFL to “set a rule that you can’t kneel during our National Anthem!”

He told wealthy attendees at a GOP donor dinner in New York on Tuesday that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could have easily stopped the protests.

“All Goodell had to do was say there’s rules and you can’t do it, suspend him for a couple games, you would never have had this,” he said, according to an attendee. “Now you have this whole thing going, and it’s a very dangerous thing ‘cause we cannot let anyone disrespect our country like that.”

Trump reiterated Wednesday that the NFL is now in a tight spot.

“You cannot have people disrespecting our national anthem, our flag, our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” he told reporters. “And in my opinion, the NFL has to change. Or you know what’s gonna happen? Their business is gonna go to hell.”

