MSNBC’s Katy Tur stated Wednesday that it is “silly” to focus on standing for the national anthem.

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Tur said, “It’s just kind of silly that we’re talking about standing for the flag when we have so many terribly important issues to talk about right now, and the president has so many big issues on his plate. So many things that he’s trying to push through Congress–health care, we’ve got North Korea with nukes, the Iran deal, soldiers dying in Niger, they are still not sure what happened there.”

She was joined in the segment by The New York Times’ Mark Leibovich, who insisted, “I think what this football kerfuffle shows is he just loves nothing more than to hurl himself into the middle of the most raw and sensitive and delicate culture issues, usually with racist subtexts.

He added: “Race is a subtext. He’ll rub every nerve raw until everyone is really, really tired, and ultimately I don’t think people get smarter on these issues.”

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