NBC Sports Pro Football Talk turned into a venue for bashing Donald Trump and conservatives when Mike Florio and Chris Simms said they had to expose “hypocritical sports fans” and media personalities.
The duo waded into political waters on Tuesday while saying their hand was forced by “a lotta [sic] rich, white people in certain news channels.”
At issue was the friction between the NFL Players Coalition and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who hosted a fundraiser for the Republican president.
Players Coalition members pressured Ross to step down from a social justice working group due to his fundraising efforts.
“I would love to stick to sports. Some times politics gets yanked onto sports,” Mr. Florio said, the media watchdog NewsBusters reported. “We hear all the time, players and reporters, stick to sports. Well, is it fair, Chris, to turn it around on the owners and tell them to stick to sports? Stephen Ross isn’t sticking to sports when he decided to host a $100,000, up to $250,000 per person fundraiser for the president. That’s not sticking to sports. But nobody ever says that he should stick to sports.”
“He’s rich and he’s white,” Mr. Simms said of Ross. “That’s why. Sugarcoat it. When LeBron James talks, or something like that, yeah. There’s a lotta [sic] rich, white people in certain news channels that, yeah, they love to say it, but yet they don’t ever turn it around on anybody that’s that way, or that they’re rich or white or if they’re established like that. It seems like [it] to me. It bothers me. … it’s so hypocritical in so many ways. … [Ross is] trying to argue that Trump is a centrist really, he’s a centrist really. No, Mr. Ross, then you haven’t been paying attention to the world the last three years. He’s far from a centrist at this point. He’s the most far-right that we’ve ever seen in a president.”
NewsBusters writer Jay Maxson deadpanned in response to the broadcast that “Pro” in “NBC Sports Pro Football Talk” may stand for “Progressive.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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