Trump Tweets Support for NFL Player With History of Racist Tweets

His tweet ignored the #1 NFL draft pick, who is black.

Oliver Contreras/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In a Saturday morning tweet, President Trump offered congratulations to Nick Bosa, the Ohio State defensive end who this week became the second overall pick in the NFL draft, after facing criticism for past racist tweets and supporting social media posts with racist and homophobic hashtags. The first player picked in the draft, Oklahoma quarterback Kyle Murray, who is black, received no mention on Trump’s Twitter feed. 

Bosa is white and will join the San Francisco 49ers. In recent days, the San Francisco Chronicle, news outlets, and Twitter users have dug up his social media history. The website Black Sports Online posted threads showing Bosa following and liking posts from accounts that repeatedly used the n-word and poked fun at tennis player Venus Williams. Others noted Bosa’s recently deleted tweets where he criticized Beyonce’s music, the Black Panther movie, and Colin Kaepernick—the former 49ers quarterback who launched a racial justice protest movement with his decision to kneel rather than stand during the national anthem at football games—who Bosa called a “clown,” and also retweeted a tweet referring to him as “crappernick.” Bosa has also deleted his tweets expressing support for the president.

Trump’s tweet in support of Bosa is notable given the president’s long history of criticizing Kaepernick. Trump often blasted the quarterback’s decision to kneel during the anthem while campaigning, and has continued to do so since arriving at the White House. He made fun of Kaepernick during a 2017 rally in Kentucky, criticized Nike for making the quarterback the face of a 2018 ad campaign, and pressured NFL team owners to change league rules to outlaw protests like Kaepernick’s. 

Both the general manager and head coach of the 49ers were asked about Bosa’s social media history at a news conference this week, and sought to play down the controversy. On Friday, Bosa apologized for his social media posts and to Kaepernick for calling him a clown, saying it was a “bad decision.” When asked about the tweets in an interview with ESPN before the draft, Bosa said he deleted the tweets because “I might end up in San Francisco.” 

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate