Jaguars owner Shad Khan calls President Trump ‘The Great Divider’
Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan, who linked arms with his players last month following inflammatory remarks by President Donald Trump, reportedly took on the president Friday, calling him “the great divider.”
Khan spoke at a conference put on by Crain’s Chicago Business, which reported on the event. A spokesman for Khan confirmed he attended the Chicago event and said the reporting of Khan’s remarks by Crain’s was accurate.
“What [Trump] has done is shown leadership as the great divider, not uniter. We are used to being warm and fuzzy and cuddled. Well, it’s a different time,” the weekly business publication quoted Khan as saying.
Crain’s quoted Khan as saying that because of Trump, “politics and the Western World will never be the same again.” And that, “a lot of the stuff like football [that] Trump does is highly calculated — he looks for issues that you can touch and it will blow people up.”
It was at a Sept. 22 campaign rally in Huntsville, Ala., that Trump said National Football League owners should fire players who do not stand for the national anthem. He used profanity in referring to players protesting social injustice.
Khan said Friday, “You have to give Trump credit, people are confused on the First Amendment versus patriotism, that if you exercise your First Amendment you’re not a patriot, which is crazy. … People are confused on it, [Trump] knew he could hit on it and take advantage. I think what we’re seeing is the great divider overcoming the great uniter.”
On Sept. 24, more than 130 NFL players sat, knelt or raised their fists before that Sunday’s games, the first following Trump’s suggestion that protesting players should be fired. That day’s first contest was the Jaguars’ game against the Baltimore Ravens in London. There, Khan joined his players along the sideline during the anthem and linked arms with the players standing on either side of him.
Khan said Friday, “I had heard from a lot of the players what their feelings were, how offended they were [by Trump’s comments] and what they were going to do and my concern was that they don’t do anything to hurt themselves,” he said. “We wanted to do something as a team, because a team divided against itself cannot stand.”
Khan, who donated $1 million toward Trump’s inaugural committee, also reportedly spoke about what he termed the divisive nature of the political advice Trump receives.
Crain’s quoted him as saying, “Steve Bannon or whoever is analyzing the data realizes, ‘How do I get elected?’ I get elected by dividing this person or this group against this group. What are the worst fears, phobias somebody has, how do I tap that button and get them with my people? There’s a lot of predictive behavior here.”
Among Khan’s other remarks, as reported by Crain’s:“The root cause [of gun violence in Chicago and Detroit] is there aren’t good jobs. We focus on 40-year-old and 50-year-old white guys that are unemployed, (but) these are minority kids in inner cities, and Trump has hit on this. That is a hot button issue for us, our politicians haven’t addressed. … Unless that is addressed and we create jobs, we’re going to have all this unrest.”
“So whenever you get down to it, [diversity is] good business. And if you haven’t looked at all the candidates, you haven’t found the best candidate, and it shouldn’t be reverse discrimination either. If I can get it out to a simple point: diversity is better business.”
Khan also recalled at the conference unflattering remarks about league owners made to him years ago as he was attempting to buy an NFL franchise. He said he was told, “You’ve got a bunch of 85-year-old guys who don’t think they’re racist, but they are racist.” Khan, who grew up in Pakistan, became the NFL’s first and only non-white owner when he took over the Jaguars in January 2012.
Less than six years later, Khan is heavily involved in league management. He is chairman of its Business Ventures Committee and sits on three other committees: NFL Network, Health and Safety, and Finance.
NFL owners are to meet Tuesday and Wednesday in New York, and the league’s spokesman has said the national anthem will be a key topic of discussion. The Associated Press obtained a memo to owners from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying that the anthem issue is dividing the league from its fans and that the league needs “to move past this controversy.”
The AP said Goodell wrote, “The controversy over the anthem is a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues. We need to move past this controversy, and we want to do that together with our players.”
The controversy has lingered in part due to the actions of Vice President Mike Pence, who left a Sunday game in Indianapolis after players knelt, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who threatened to bench players who protest during the anthem. President Trump used Twitter to express his support for Jones and to reveal that Pence left the game at his instruction.
