Donald Trump has stirred the pot once again on social media with some fresh controversial remarks he made on a podcast where he said that he didn’t enjoy playing football when he was younger because he didn’t like a player “from a bad neighborhood” tackling him.
The former president sat down with the hosts of the “Bussin with the Boys” podcast on Tuesday and talked in part about playing football as a young adult.
“I played football too. I didn’t particularly like it,” Trump said. “I could catch the ball good, but I didn’t particularly like having some guy that was, uh, lifting weights all day long and came from a bad neighborhood. Yeah, and he sees me, and they were tackling hard.”
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign posted a clip of those comments, which garnered thousands of impressions on X. Many viewers estimated that Trump was clearly invoking racism.
“The racist dog whistle is now a bullhorn,” one X user commented. “He can just say ‘black person’ next time…” another person wrote.
According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 78-year-old Trump was a three-sport athlete at New York Military Academy in Cornwall, New York. He played soccer and baseball and played on the football team for one year. He told the podcasters that he “loves baseball.”
While Trump might have disliked playing football in his youth, he has worked to weave the sport into his business interests in the past.
Beginning in the early 1980s, he reportedly made several attempts to gain partial ownership of NFL teams but was rejected due to financial solvency issues, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
After the founding of the United States Football League in 1982, Trump purchased the league’s New Jersey Generals for $9 million. A few years later, he led the association in a lawsuit against the National Football League, alleging the NFL violated antitrust laws by monopolizing the sport. Officially, the USFL won the suit but was only awarded $3 in damages. Due to financial instability, the league had to cease operations in 1986.
In 2014, Trump sought to buy the Buffalo Bills for $1 billion following the death of founder and former owner Ralph Wilson. In his initial offer letter, he noted that his net worth was $8 billion but never provided financial statements to prove that figure.
Trump told the “Bussin with the Boys” podcasters that he didn’t come close to taking ownership of the Bills, which went to Terry and Kim Pegula, who outbid the former president by $400 million.
