AirTalk asks football fans to weigh in after Sunday’s NFL games brought a wave of protests against President Trump, starkly politicizing a social tradition that has long been a refuge from politics. We also parse through the week’s political headlines, including the latest on the ACA repeal; hear from one of Obama’s former speechwriters on his time in the White House; and more.
After protests across NFL in response to Trump comments, gauging fan reactions and how far free speech extends in private sector
If you’ve ever watched an interview or press conference with an NFL coach or player after a football game in the past, you’ve probably seen how they often prefer to focus on their play or their team’s play on the field rather than social or political issues happening off the field. However, this past Sunday it was clear that for almost every NFL team, football wasn’t the only thing on their minds.
About 200 individual players knelt, sat, or raised their fists as the national anthem was played before each game. Other teams stayed in the locker room until the anthem was over, a choice that some organizations
— Seahawks PR (@seahawksPR) September 24, 2017
was meant to take a stand against injustice and others
was to avoid the appearance of taking sides and that their absence isn’t intended to be unpatriotic. Fans had mixed reactions.
What did you think of President Trump’s comments? What about the way NFL players, coaches and owners responded during the national anthem? For many people, sports like football are supposed to be a way to escape from the march of the daily news cycle, but will the semi-politicization of football games as an event turn some fans away? If you’re already a football fan, will the recent protests change your watching habits at all? If you’re not a fan, will you be more likely to watch? If you watched the Sunday games with a group, what were your conversations like? Did you talk about the protests at all?
Guest:
Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA and founder of The Volokh Conspiracy blog on the Washington Post
Week in politics: What to expect as Republicans gear up for ACA repeal vote, plus what’s in Trump’s new travel ban
Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for a big week for their legislative efforts.
Talk has been swirling of the chances of a new effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act to pass through the Senate. Right now, those chances appear murky at best, with several prominent Republicans (names you’ll likely recognize from the last GOP health care bill) saying they won’t support the bill as it stands. Also this week, we’re watching as Republicans are expected pull the tarp off the framework for their much-anticipated tax reform plan.
Meanwhile, at the White House, the Trump administration signed a new travel ban on Sunday with more targeted restrictions. It adds North Korea, Venezuela, and Chad to the list of countries whose citizens will now face increased restrictions on entering the country. The order replaces the previous executive order that the president signed earlier this year restricting travel to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
We’ll also tackle the political dimensions of NFL teams and players protesting during the national anthem during football on Sunday and preview tomorrow’s special election in Alabama.
Guests:
Caroline Heldman, associate professor of politics at Occidental College and author of the forthcoming book, “Protest Politics in the Marketplace: Consumer Activism in the Corporate Age” (Cornell University Press, 2017); she tweets
Sean T. Walsh, Republican political analyst and partner at Wilson Walsh Consulting in San Francisco; he is a former adviser to California Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a former White House staffer for Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush
North Korea says US ‘declared war’ - the latest in escalating tensions
In the latest installment of the escalating verbal exchanges between the U.S. and North Korea, today North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Trump’s statements on Saturday amounted to a declaration of war.
According to Ri, Pyongyang can now respond accordingly, which includes potentially shooting down U.S. bombers, even if they aren’t in North Korean territory.
Ri is purportedly responding to Trump’s tweet from Saturday:
Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!
What does this latest statement from Pyongyang mean for the U.S.-North Korea relationship?
Guest:
Sung-Yoon Lee, an expert on the Koreas, and a professor in Korean Studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University
What was it like writing for President Obama? This ‘Funny or Die’ writer knows
In early 2008, David Litt’s greatest passion was his college improv troupe. Then came the the flight to JFK, when everything changed.
Litt saw a two-inch-tall black man appear on his in-flight TV screen. It was Barack Obama at a presidential campaign rally in Iowa. “They said this day would never come,” he told the crowd. “At this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said you couldn’t do.”
From then on, Litt was hooked. He campaigned for Obama ruthlessly, and even stole or “borrowed” his roommate's car to attend the freshman senator’s speeches. His experiences in politics and writing for satirical online publications such as “The Onion” eventually snowballed into a position as a junior speechwriter for the presidential candidate.
Now, Litt’s firsthand account of working for the former president is published. In “Thanks, Obama,” he takes the reader inside the front lines of the Obama years.
Today, Larry sits down with Litt to discuss his experiences from junior speechwriter to senior White House staffer and Obama's legacy in the age of Donald Trump.
David Litt will be discussing his upcoming book at The New Roads School in Santa Monica tonight at 8pm. The event will be a conversation with Matt Walsh of “Veep.” For more information, click here.
Guest:
David Litt, former senior presidential speechwriter for President Obama and author of “Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years” (Harper Collins, 2017); he is now head writer, producer at the Washington D.C. office of Funny or Die