Donald Trump bashed NFL, Kaepernick because he wasn't allowed to buy the Bills

Donald Trump leaned into the Colin Kaepernick story when he was President of the United States in retaliation for not being allowed to purchase the Buffalo Bills in 2014, Stephen A. Smith said on ESPN’s First Take Thursday morning (via Awful Announcing).

According to Smith, the President at the time continued to use the bully pulpit to bring up Kaepernick while discussing racial inequity in an attempt to turn conservatives against the National Football League. He also frequently mentioned how NFL ratings were severely impacted by the racial protests, but that hasn’t really been borne out in facts.

“Donald Trump called yours truly, that would be me,” Smith shared Thursday for the first time. “And he said that he wanted to purchase the Buffalo Bills. And I’ll never forget what he said to me, he said, ‘if those owners screw me over’ — and I’m just using the FCC allowable version — he said, ‘if they screw me over, I’m gonna show them, I’m gonna get them all back, I’m gonna run for president of the United States.’ That’s what he said to me back in 2014.”

He did all that to “cause havoc,” per Smith, specifically because the NFL owners kept him out of their private club. Kim & Terry Pegula agreed to purchase the team in September of 2014 and the owners approved the couple a month later.

It’s not the first time Trump was at odds with the NFL. Trump was an owner in the USFL in the 1980s and wanted to merge the two leagues. He eventually sued the NFL, winning $3.76 (not a typo) in the process. That couldn't have helped his case this time around.