Sen. Lindsey Graham tore into former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, calling him a racist for comments the quarterback made after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general.
“He’s a loser on and off the field,” Graham said this weekend on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “He has no idea what the Iranian regime has done to the region.”
Kaepernick on Saturday called the strike “nothing new” because “American terrorist attacks against Black and Brown people” are a routine byproduct of “the expansion of American imperialism.” Graham called Kaepernick’s comments “un-American.”
“He’s a racist,” Graham said of the former NFL player-turned-Black Lives Matter activist. “If you’re looking for racism in America, Mr. Kaepernick, look in the mirror.”
Kaepernick was reacting to President Trump ordering the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who the Trump administration said was planning to kill hundreds of Americans in the Middle East.
The former championship-winning quarterback has drawn criticism from Trump and conservative pundits after sparking a wave of protests by other NFL players, during which they knelt for the national anthem before games. Kaepernick, who has since left the league, said the goal of the protest was to raise awareness about the mistreatment of black people in America, especially by police. He has said the American flag does not represent him.
“America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad,” Kaepernick said in a separate tweet Saturday evening. “America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the non white world.”
America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad. America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the non white world.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) January 4, 2020
Graham said America is “not the problem.”
“You’re so blinded by your hatred of Trump that you can’t see the difference between who we are and who the Ayatollah is,” he said. “Pretty sad.”
