to have black balled him for making it in the first place. and all of a sudden made the league itself the victim. but at the very least, there was encouraging optics of a notoriously apolitical organization standing up for its players by taking a knee. and perhaps the most dramatic display of top down unity was that of dallas cowboy owner jerry jones seen here before a september 25th game arms locked with his players down on a bended knee. jones performance of solidarity was somewhat surprising considering that he had once criticized anthem protests before president trump s late september attack and, two, $1 million he donated to the
in some ways back to a culture war that trump and pence felt they were winning on. this was big news two weeks ago. i have to be cynical about this for a moment. the vice president was in las vegas yesterday and speaking solemnly about the massacre and flew home to indiana and spent the night and went to the game today. he s about to head back to the west coast. it makes you wonder if he wanted to go to the colts game in indiana to make this statement, knowing that the players were almost guaranteed to kneel. there has been players kneeling every game. pence heading to the game today, they had to have known there would be kneeling. his statement seems written ahead of time and seems like it was a staged moment for pence to walk out and make a statement about this. but clearly he feels strongly about these anthem protests. he wanted to express his criticism of them. maybe he is watching the game at home.
acknowledge that. but the president in the campaign he ran made the argument that america is perfect when it comes to the law enforcement. and that people really need to take another stand with the law enforcement so i think that that s why he s continuing to go at this. because it is based his base understands this is who the president is and he wants to remind the base that he s the person who ran. it s a decisive issue who say that 52% of americans disapprove of the anthem protests and 55% say they disapprove of trump s call to fire the players. seema, is this low hanging fruit that the president can use to kind of distract from the other big issues that are going on? no legislative accomplishments out of the white house. a major issue with north korea. and interior fighting within the gop. absolutely. this is something that plays perfectly with his base. you know, as we were talking about earlier we saw this on the campaign trail all of 2017-2018.
president is right when he says the anthem protests are one factor in a tv ratings drop. and since the president weighed in, the owners are now dealing with a surge in ticket holder requests for refunds. other sports leagues are watching this quite closely. the nba season kicks off in a little more than two weeks. and the nba headquarters this week reminded teams and players of the league s long-standing policy requiring players to stand during the national anthem. there are, however, some ongoing conversations about alternative ways for the players to show their displeasure with the president. we ll keep an eye on all of that. kickoff just a few hours away. that s inside politics. hope to see you weekdays here, as well. we re here at noon eastern. up next, state of the union with jake tapper. hey, man. oh!
the united states only to die a few days later. this morning his parents are breaking their silence for the first time since his death. they are going to join us coming up live. brian: that s an important story. what do americans think of their anthem protests, here live for a three hour long discussion. we re coming to your town we re an american band when heartburn hits, fight back fast with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums