Athletes Fired Back At Donald Trump's 'Locker Room Talk' Excuse | trump locker room bantertrump locker room banter
Don Van Natta Jr.
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OpEd: No, Donald It's Not Just 'Locker Room Talk' - NBC News | trump locker room banterSeth Wickersham
As DeMaurice Smith collection Monday morning to Ronald Reagan Washington Civic Airport for a flight to his anniversary locker allowance affair with the Buffalo Bills, his buzz rang. It was Roger Goodell. The two longtime adversaries -- the NFL Players Association controlling administrator and the NFL abettor -- had not yet announced about the antecedent weekend, back alliance executives, aggregation owners, coaches and best of the league's 1,664 players accolade to amount out an adapted acknowledgment to Admiral Donald Trump's acrid criticism of a few players' accommodation to kneel during the arena of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Abounding players were affronted by Trump's comments during a Sept. 22 assemblage in Huntsville, Alabama, not alone because he had mocked the NFL's attempts to accomplish the bold safer, but because he had said he would "love" to see an buyer abolish from the acreage and blaze any "son of a bitch" who chose to kneel during the civic anthem.
A baby protest, started by quarterback Colin Kaepernick a year ago beneath Admiral Barack Obama, had now become a league-wide, nationally polarizing crisis beneath Trump. By Monday, anybody had aloof to their corresponding worlds. Goodell to his bosses, the NFL aggregation owners who don't appetite annihilation interfering with the league's anniversary $14 billion revenue, and the players to their locker apartment and their families, abounding of whom had able opinions about the admiration and capital to apperceive what anniversary amateur advised to do about it. Now Goodell was calling Smith, and the overarching catechism was whether the alliance and the union, two entities that never absence a adventitious to argue, would arrange adjoin an aberrant advance by the admiral -- or split, again.
"It absolutely was my takeaway that the abettor was attractive for a way for the protests to end," Smith said Friday back asked about his 30-minute chat with Goodell, while crumbling to action specifics about what was discussed. Goodell beneath to comment, but a alliance antecedent did not altercation Smith's account. "Knowing the alliance the way I apperceive the league, they are aboriginal and foremost anxious about the appulse on their business," Smith said. "That's consistently their aboriginal concern. I mean, who are we kidding?"
Nobody was badinage back abounding of the NFL's highest-profile owners, including Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots and Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, bidding apropos aftermost anniversary that the eyes of hundreds of players kneeling, sitting or actual in the locker allowance during the arena of the civic canticle had alienated abounding admirers at a decidedly perilous moment for the NFL. TV ratings for abounding of this year's amateur accept connected a accelerate that began aftermost season; some alliance sponsors accept developed agitable about the backlash; and best surveys accept apparent that a majority of NFL admirers are affronted off by the politicization of the game.
To the commissioner's advancement that the protests should end, Smith said, "My alone acknowledgment was, 'I don't accept the adeptness to acquaint our players what to do.' ... At the end of the day, this is a accumulation of players who are appliance their freedom. There is no allowance for me to breeze my fingers and acquaint our players, 'It's time for you to accord up a freedom.' Aloof the abstraction offends me. It's about as if the players are actuality asked, 'What's it activity to booty for you to stop allurement to be chargeless or to be advised like an American?'"
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE? That was a axial catechism during one of the best anarchic and alienated weeks of Goodell's 11-year tenure, according to added than a dozen interviews conducted by Alfresco the Lines with players, owners, league, abutment and aggregation executives, and added admiral abreast on arcane meetings, best of whom batten alone on the action of anonymity. Aftermost weekend's amateur were not aloof a beef about badge atrocity and ancestral inequality, which is why the still-jobless Kaepernick said he sat during the arena of the canticle afore demography a knee a year ago. It was additionally a beef adjoin authority. Players defied the alternative of abounding of their coaches and owners by kneeling; the Steelers, Seahawks and Titans defied alliance rules by actual in the locker allowance during the anthem, and Goodell let them slide. Led by Jacksonville Jaguars buyer Shad Khan at Wembley Amphitheater in London, some owners bound accoutrements on the sidelines with their players. A alliance acclaimed for its ascendancy grappled with how to accord with accident it, with the admiral of the United States abiding in his assurance to accumulate the affair assertive the civic conversation.
And so on Tuesday afternoon, 48 hours afterwards the protests had authentic a football Sunday, about 25 aggregation owners entered the league's abode at 345 Park Avenue in New York City for accepted board affairs that bound became annihilation but. Abounding almost paid absorption during a amphitheater accounts presentation. Finally, in the backward afternoon, there was a affair with owners and alliance admiral to altercate what had happened. By then, Trump had tweeted about two dozen times advancing the NFL and its players. Tempers were hot.
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Athletes take issue with Trump over 'locker room talk' | Daily ... | trump locker room banterSome owners were affronted that Joe Lockhart, the NFL's controlling carnality admiral of communications who formed as Admiral Bill Clinton's columnist secretary, had told reporters on a Monday appointment alarm that the players' words and accomplishments on the capacity of badge atrocity and racism were "what absolute locker allowance allocution is." It was a audacious attempt at Trump, who was captured in a 2005 video talking, in absolute terms, about avaricious women by their vaginas but afterwards absolved the video's capacity as "locker allowance banter." Owners, abounding of whom had accurate Trump and seven of whom had donated at atomic $1 actor to him, acquainted that Lockhart had unnecessarily politicized the league's response. One buyer barked angrily at Lockhart, who beneath to animadversion about the matter, alveolate a affect that best of them -- abnormally Jones -- shared: Cipher capital to appoint in a political mud action with the White House, alike if "they were all pissed at the president," a alliance antecedent said.
Then the affair affronted to the accountable of affronted fan bases and abashed sponsors. The Blooming Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, in particular, anniversary had accustomed cogent blowback from their fan bases and sponsors. Admirers had booed the Patriots and Cowboys for kneeling, and disgusted admirers acquaint on Facebook and YouTube videos of them afire NFL merchandise.
Most teams had already announced with their coaches and amateur captains about how to advance this weekend. Afterwards about 20 of its players knelt aftermost Sunday at Gillette Stadium, the Patriots, for instance, had absitively Monday that they would no best kneel but would put one duke over their affection and the added about the accept of the abutting teammate. The protests of the above-mentioned weekend's amateur had abundant mostly at the acumen of the players, a aberration for the league. Goodell did not accelerate out a mandate, which owners agreed had been wise. Pittsburgh buyer Art Rooney II told Goodell aftermost weekend that the Steelers had planned to break in the locker allowance during the anthem, admitting it actuality adjoin the wishes of both men. Still, on this issue, the abettor didn't try to appoint his will. On this Sunday, it was bigger to let anniversary club handle the amount on its own.
Going forward, however, some owners adopted a league-wide directive. Dan Snyder, the Washington Redskins' buyer and who beneath to animadversion through a spokesman, argued that the protests bare to end because of the crisis that the affair airish to the league's basal line. A "$40 million" NFL sponsor was because affairs out, he told his adolescent owners. Snyder kept repeating "$40 million" to add emphasis, agreeable a bunch of owners who did the algebraic and accomplished that, afterwards the players' cut of the aggregate revenue, it amounted to appreciably beneath than $1 actor per club -- hardly a game-changing sum for a alliance that aftermost year had an boilerplate per-team accumulation of $101 million.
In the meeting, abounding owners capital to speak, but the altercation anon was "hijacked," in the words of one owner, by Jones, a $1 actor contributor to Trump's countdown board armamentarium and who beneath animadversion through a spokesman. The edgeless Hall of Famer mentioned that he had announced by phone, added than already over the accomplished 24 hours, with Trump. Jones said the president, who alone a few years ago approved to buy the Buffalo Bills, had no ambition of abetment bottomward from his criticism of the NFL and its players. Jones -- who a day beforehand for Monday Night Football in Arizona had orchestrated a team-wide admiration afore the canticle advanced of ascent to angle back it started to comedy -- afresh his burden that the protests weren't acceptable for the NFL in the connected run. Best agreed, but some acquainted that alike if the alliance did lose a baby allotment of admirers due to the protests, it additionally could accretion a new audience. There was a general, if fanciful, accord that alike a concise banking hit could account the alliance in the connected term, abnormally if the alliance and the abutment could accompany in adherence abaft a distinct plan. That's how the league's business administration was planning to proceed, alike if some of the asperous account fell flat. One abstraction had all players cutting a application on their jerseys that would read, "Team America." An buyer abreast on the angle artlessly befuddled his head: "We charge to do bigger than that."
By the time Jones assured his animadversion -- and by the time the affair concluded in the aboriginal black -- cipher had pitched a accurate plan about how to move forward.
A LITTLE WHILE later, eight players from bristles teams -- linebacker Jonathan Casillas of the New York Giants, assurance Devin McCourty and appropriate teams brilliant Matthew Slater of the Patriots, arresting end Chris Connected of the Philadelphia Eagles, linebacker Christian Kirksey, cornerback Jason McCourty, and bound end Randall Telfer of the Cleveland Browns, and abhorrent accouterment Kelvin Beachum of the Jets -- entered the Alliance Boardroom at the NFL offices and took seats at the behemothic copse table with the alliance logo as its centerpiece. The affair itself was adumbrative of not alone the absolute anniversary but of the accomplished few years, authentic by animosity and disbelief on the issues amid the alliance and the union. Smith said aftermost anniversary that Goodell never mentioned the affair with players during their Monday call, and that he aboriginal got chat of it afterwards audition that Troy Vincent, the NFL controlling carnality admiral of football operations, had accomplished out anon to at atomic a dozen aggregation captains to allure them to attend. A alliance source, however, says that aggregation owners, not Vincent, arrive the players, at the advancement of Goodell. Both abandon accede that Smith and added abutment admiral were not arrive until Tuesday morning, back Goodell asked them to appear in an email. But by then, it was too late. Smith was on the alley for a alternation of locker allowance affairs and couldn't attend.
Even article as simple as convening a mutually benign owners-players acme had ripped accessible scars. In a baby beef of their own, added than a dozen players who initially had agreed to appear concluded up abandoning afterwards audition the union's leaders were initially blind of the plans. While the NFL abhorrent the anarchy of the anniversary for the anarchy surrounding the meeting, Smith was abiding that Goodell had attempted "an end run" about him with key players. "I beheld that as calumniating to our players' leadership," Smith said. "The alliance tries to use some of our guys to accord them cover, to get them on their side. Our players' administration wasn't pleased, and I wasn't pleased."
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Donald Trump Locker Room Banter Unedited raw footage - YouTube | trump locker room banterWhen the affair commenced, Kraft, Rooney, Khan, John Mara of the Giants, Stephen Ross of the Miami Dolphins, Jeffrey Lurie of the Eagles, and Jimmy Haslam of the Browns were amid the owners in attendance. Some of the owners sat abutting to the players at the table, rather than beyond from them. The affair was accepted to be confidential; no chief alliance admiral were acceptable to appear except for Vincent. Aboriginal on, one of the players advisedly told the accumulated owners -- in accurate Kraft, who this year gave his longtime acquaintance Trump a Super Bowl 51 champions' arena -- "We apperceive a lot of you are in with Trump. This affair is activity on because the players anticipate that some of the bodies that they assignment for are with his all-embracing agenda, and that's not in the players' favor."
"I'm not with Trump," Ross said, alluding to the president's comments about the players. "And I don't apperception anyone press that anywhere."
All eyes affronted to Kraft, who had been one of the arch advocates of hosting this affair with players. He said that players, while aural their rights to affably protest, bare to accept that, at the end of the day, the NFL was a business, and that anybody in the allowance bare to anticipate about it that way and to anticipate about the bodies they entertain.
Several added owners echoed Kraft's apropos that the admiral begin a way to endanger the sport's acceptance with a divisive, politically answerable issue. "This could annihilate football and end our business," an buyer said.
The affair was off to an animal start. A few owners believed the players were carrying abutment talking points. Players saw article added monumental: The owners begin themselves in a position of weakness; their anguish about the appulse on their business had become a crisis, and they bare the players to advice them. "For the aboriginal time, the owners are abashed of the players," Smith afterwards said. "It has beneath to do with money and it has added to do with control. The owners are acclimated to actuality in ascendancy -- and they aren't on this. They apperceive it. They abhorrence it."
During the two-hour meeting, the players additionally noticed there was no accord amid owners about what to do. Anniversary buyer was ambidextrous with the beef differently, and the differing approaches -- and account -- seemed to acerbate up themselves added than annihilation the players had said.
Toward the end, though, the accent of the chat had turned, with players aboveboard cogent their angle and the owners listening. It acquainted added like an honest dialogue. In the Giants' locker allowance two canicule later, Casillas thanked Trump for what he had said during his assemblage because it had opened a allusive conversation. He told reporters, "I apperceive the owners for abiding don't appetite us kneeling," and players alike agreed that admiration adeptness not be productive, because the bulletin had been misconstrued. "Maybe we gotta amount article abroad out, addition way to maybe get beyond the acumen the protests happened from the beginning. ... There was annihilation we absitively we were activity to do collectively. It was a actual accessory meeting."
"I anticipate both abandon got to airing abroad with an compassionate of how anniversary added felt," McCourty afterwards said.
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Athletes take issue with Trump over 'locker room talk' | Daily ... | trump locker room banterIt was bright to several, but not all, owners that there was a bisect amid race, age, chic and amusing adeptness with the players, and it would be bounden on owners to try to transcend it, whether they capital to or not. Smith got a appointment on the players' affair with the owners on Wednesday morning as he collection to Cincinnati for a locker allowance affair with the Bengals. He was frustrated. The crisis has been mentally backbreaking for some players, demography a assessment on their adeptness to accomplish their jobs. "The owners had no botheration whatsoever giving up $10 billion account of acquirement back they absitively they were activity to abolish football for an absolute year," Smith afterwards said, apropos to the owners' 2011 lockout. "Now they appetite to accomplish an bread-and-butter altercation to the players that appliance their abandon somehow hurts the business."
But what balked Smith and several players best was the acutely abhorrent subtext of the questions, as if cipher was acknowledging that the players' affair -- which was now the owners' issue, too -- was bigger than the NFL. Lockhart would afterwards assert that the conversations had "brought our teams together," but Smith disagreed: "It was abhorrent to me because, historically, there was consistently a catechism of, 'What is it activity to booty in adjustment for us to buy your articulation of protest?' The botheration with that is, No. 1, it assumes we are accomplishing this because we appetite article from the owners. And second, it's bright that already you commoditize a freedom, like the appropriate to chargeless speech, already you've awash it, you can never use it again."
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, several owners filed into a appointment allowance on the sixth attic of the league's headquarters, which featured a large, football-shaped table. The affair was declared to be a accepted board amend about business ventures, followed by a appointment alarm on the protests. But aloft Goodell's suggestion, the blow of the owners who were at Park Avenue concluded up advancing into the room. Goodell began by recapping the antecedent night's affair with the players. He adumbrated that it began with the players appearing aloof and afraid to their abutment talking points, but things bigger as it went on. He fabricated bright that this wasn't activity to be an affair that would go abroad brief and that, affective forward, owners bare to acquisition a band-aid that formed for everyone.
"We can't aloof acquaint them to stop," Goodell said of the players' protests.
Many owners anon argued otherwise. "We charge to acquisition a way area Trump doesn't win," one said, and that meant application advantage as administration to end the protests. Addition said, "We'll get our guys in line." It was bright to abounding in the allowance that this was a bounded affair as abundant as a political one, with owners' altruism for admiration shaped added by their admirers in bounded markets than their own claimed politics. Dan Snyder, who had abutting his players in accoutrements at FedEx Acreage on Sunday night, was in an abnormally alienated bazaar and was decidedly dismissive of the kneeling. "It was raw for a lot of owners," an buyer says. Some teams, such as the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos, had been ambidextrous with the protests for added than a year, and 49ers buyer Jed York argued that it was a nuanced affair with no accessible answers and that it would booty time to navigate. "We charge to account Aboriginal Amendment rights, behindhand of our claimed animosity of the accomplishments involved," York told the room.
The affair additionally acquainted like a lot of owners' meetings, with cipher active it, owners sitting abaft poker faces as they wondered whether to accurate an assessment and, finally, as usual, Jerry Jones bushing the void. As abundant as any owner, Jones doesn't do annihilation that isn't acceptable for the NFL's business interests. He common that he was not in favor of the kneeling, but that the owners had to acquisition a aboveboard way to accept to the players' concerns. "How do we abode the basis affair for the players on this?" he wondered aloud. "In the connected run, it's not acceptable to kneel. Bodies don't appetite football to be politicized, but there's a charge to do article to accept to our players and advice them."
The affair anon ended, afterwards a bright aisle forward. The account to boldness the crisis were vague: reverting to what occurred until 2008, back the timing of the civic canticle was for it to be accomplished afore players larboard locker rooms; acceptance players who appetite to kneel to break in the locker allowance while the blow of the players stand; absorption on hosting amusing amends forums; award a way to appearance moments of accord alfresco of the civic anthem; scheduling contest that authenticate abutment for troops by the alliance and players. The players and owners weren't as unified as they would afterwards about state, but as one buyer says, "We've gotten out of crisis administration and into, 'How do we do this correctly?' There was a adventitious that we didn't accord with it accurately -- and it had passed."
As consistently with the NFL, there was anon a bold to be played. The night afterwards the owners flew out of New York, the Packers and the Chicago Bears entered Lambeau Acreage for a Thursday game. There was as abundant apprehension for the civic canticle as there was for the bold amid the NFL's oldest rivalry. Both teams stood accept to accept on the band area the amusement meets the field. As the army cheered, "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A," Blooming Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers stood with his easily on his hips, cat-and-mouse for the moment, with cameras zeroed in. Until recently, Rodgers had fabricated a career out of not absolute abounding of his accurate convictions, but he seemed to accept begin a articulation as an apostle for the protests, one of the few brilliant quarterbacks to do so.
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Trump Calls Lewd Conversation 'Locker Room Banter' « CBS Denver | trump locker room banterSoon, it was time. Bound end Richard Rodgers bound his appropriate arm into Aaron Rodgers' left, and receiver Randall Cobb affiliated his larboard with his quarterback's right. The alternation connected bottomward the sideline, a bank of white akin with chicken and green. So it went with the Bears on the added side. Cipher knelt. Uniformed aggressive stood about an American banderole so ample that it looked like a account affected by the field. Beforehand in the week, Rodgers had asked all admirers who planned on accessory the bold to accompany the Packers in bond arms. Some did; best didn't. It was adamantine to acquaint if any of the disparities in assessment or calibration had been transcended, but afterwards the anthem, the admirers animated what they capital to cheer. Afresh Rodgers stalked the sideline, adhering any assistant who capital a hug. It was a moment afore the moment, and for the abutting few hours, at least, anybody was watching the aforementioned game.
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