Eric Reid came out and publicly blasted Vice President Pence for using a PR stunt to hurt the NFL players and their cause before explaining to Meghan McCain that their protests have nothing to do with the military, the flag or disrespecting the National Anthem.
Eric Reid joined ABC's The View and very calmly explained his opinions and what the protests are really about.
Co-host Joy Behar asked how it felt to be called S.O.B.s by Trump.
Reid said, "It's disheartening that the president of a country would call any of his citizens an S.O.B. but then when you compare that -- [ applause ] -- when you compare that to the events that happened in Charlottesville where Neo-Nazis killed a person and nearly beat another person to death, and he calls them very fine people, it's sad."
Reid also said that Trump's action have helped continue the platform they want to address but he has no idea why Trump cursed them out.
Trump did so to change the subject and get his followers to attack someone on his behalf. Since his whole platform was a white nationalistic jingoism, this fell into his wheelhouse, no matter how despicable it is.
The new member of The View, Meghan McCain must have felt an obligation to be a contrarian when she joined in the questioning
McCain asked if he felt the negative response to their complaints is racist. Reid said he was there to try and reconnect the protests to the real issues they are about - law enforcement abuse of minorities.
"It's been misconstrued as disrespectful to the flag, the military and the anthem," he said, before assuring Meghan he had the utmost respect for her father, which she was happy about.
McCain said, "Mike Pence left a game and I understand that you said it was an act of, quote, 'systemic oppression.' So if I left your football game, would you think that I would be behaving in the same way?"
Reid replied, "You're not the Vice President of the United States."
"Fair enough," she said. She felt that leaving the game was a form of peaceful protest for the VP, but he disagreed.
He continued, "Systemic oppression is defined as using your power to unjustly control people. The vice president went to that game knowing ahead of time that the San Francisco 49ers had the most players engage in the protests so he went to that game knowing that we're going to protest again. and he went to that game knowing that he would leave after the anthem so he could misconstrue our message furthermore and say it's again, disrespectful."
See, Meghan? What Pence did was to control their sycophants to be more hateful by using our flag and anthem as a stunt to help a very troubled administration take some of the heat off of them.
While Trump's antics are despicable in general, they have specifically hurt the NFL players to some extent and that is sad.
