President Donald Trump took a break Tuesday night from his presidential duties to court donors at a fundraising dinner in Manhattan, delivering a 40-minute speech covering a wide range of topics including his spat with the NFL.
The President proudly discussed the controversy with the NFL that he manufactured when he criticized players who protest during the national anthem at a Friday night rally in Alabama.
“They have a rule, you can’t dance in the end zone, you can’t wear pink socks, one guy’s mother had breast cancer and they wouldn’t let him, you can’t do anything! But you’re allowed to sit down for the national anthem,” Trump said at the dinner, according to an attendee who spoke to Politico.
Trump criticized Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who started the trend of kneeling during the anthem as a way to protest police treatment of black people, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, according to Politico.
“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,” Trump said, as quoted by Politico. “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 raised NFL issue again at RNC fundraiser in NY tonight, per donor. "He talked a lot about how players obviously shouldn’t be kneeling"
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) September 27, 2017
Trump made the remarks in front of about 150 people at the upscale restaurant Le Cirque to help fundraise for his re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee. Attendees paid between $35,000 and $100,000 to attend the swanky dinner.
The President also touched on health care and his communication with world leaders, CNN reported. Trump claimed that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau incorrectly told him that the U.S. has a $11 billion trade surplus with Canada and told a staffer to leave the room and check the numbers, according to CNN’s source in the room. Trump said the staffer returned to say that Trudeau was correct on the number, but did not take into account how Canada benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
“With math like that, we’d all be broke,” Trump then said, according to CNN.
