Colin Kaepernick Says Hillary Clinton Should Be in Jail

Yesterday Colin Kaepernick attempted to explain why he's not standing for the national anthem. 

Given that I destroyed him for this decision on Saturday -- thanks to the hundreds of thousands of you who have read and shared that Outkick article which you can read right here -- I figured it was only fair to share the transcript of his comments here.

Not surprisingly, Kaepernick's political beliefs are mostly vague generalities that lack any actionable basis or tangible goals. But he did offer one opinion that I thought would blow up into a large story. Responding to a question about the top candidates for President Kaepernick said he believed that Hillary Clinton should be in jail:

"I mean, you have Hillary who's called black teens or black kids super-predators.

You have Donald Trump who's openly racist.

I mean, we have a presidential candidate (Hillary) who's deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn't make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you'd be in prison.

So what is this country really standing for?"

Okay, that's a pretty big news story, right, an NFL quarterback who is the center of a media firestorm for his refusal to stand for the national anthem explains his stance by saying he believes one candidate is "openly racist" -- which isn't true, but whatever -- and the other should be in jail. Given that tons of people have already called Trump racist that story isn't particularly newsworthy, but it certainly should be covered.

But have any other prominent pro athletes being covered for their political beliefs said they believe Hillary Clinton would be in jail if she were any other person? 

That's a pretty big story, isn't it? So I expected to wake up this morning and see that story echoing all over the Internet. After all, if we care so much about Colin Kaepernick's political opinions, his belief that the Democratic candidate for president should be in jail, is kind of a big story, right? I mean, Colin Kaepernick's ability to garner every left wing opinion maker's butterfly kisses on one day and then give them the Heisman the next day is positively Clay Travisian of him. 

Instead, hardly anyone has even Tweeted the quote in the entire media and Outkick is one of the only places in sports media that will feature it today as a story. 

Why is that?

The only reason I can think is media bias -- the liberal sports media wants to focus on Kaepernick's bold stand against racism -- which is so lame, as I've long established I hate racism more than anyone -- and ignore Kaepernick saying the Democratic presidential candidate should be in jail. Which of these statements is actually bold? Kaepernick being against racism or his belief that Hillary should be in jail? 

Now, I happen to disagree with Kaepernick on whether Hillary should be in jail for her email scandal, but if you're looking for political opinions of his that are newsworthy this is literally the only thing he's said that is remotely interesting or not cliched.

Doubt me, go read the transcript of his comments.

They evince a clear misunderstanding of most basic political issues. For instance, when asked for specifics about what he'd like to see change in the country Kaepernick said:

"There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality. There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's standards."

First of all, as I said yesterday, he's flat out wrong on this. Every police shooting is investigated. You can disagree about the result of those investigations, but charges are brought when independent prosecutors believe police murders have happened. Look at the police shooting in South Carolina, for instance, where an officer was charged with murder for shooting an unarmed black man.

If you don't conduct adequate investigations of police brutality and just charge everyone who shoots someone with murder then you end up with bad charges being brought, as we just saw in Baltimore, where a black judge tossed cases against multiple white and black police officers in the Freddie Gray case. 

Sometimes we don't even just have one investigation of a police shooting, we even have multiple investigations of police shootings leading to the same results. Such as in the Michael Brown case when the local government and the federal government -- headed up by a black attorney general -- found no basis to prosecute the police officer in the Michael Brown shooting. In fact, the federal government investigation determined that "hands up, don't shoot" was a total lie. Of course, that doesn't stop people from being misinformed, but, as I always say, facts matter more than feelings. 

Second, Kaepernick says, "People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right."

Does someone need to tell Kaepernick that the reason for this is because it's standard police operating procedure when a police officer kills anyone, justified or unjustified? They pull the officer off the street and conduct an investigation to determine whether his shooting was justified or not. That's part of the agreement between the government and the union representing all police officers and it makes perfect sense. 

Does Kaepernick really think that a police officer who shoots at someone shooting at him should be unpaid while his shooting is investigated? 

So when he says, "That's not right.That's not right by anyone's standards," he's completely wrong. 

This answer matters because when he was asked to give one thing that he would specifically change based on his protest, Kaepernick is totally and completely wrong with his answer. 

But for those of you who want facts, 73% of all people shot and killed by police in this country in the past two years were white and Hispanic. Just 27% of people shot and killed by police were black. Black people were actually less likely to get shot than white and Hispanic people when you consider the black arrest rate for violent crime.

Again, facts matter.  

Kaepernick also speaks in ways that demonstrate he lacks genuine understanding of basic political questions. For instance, Kaepernick doesn't know what the phrase "blanket indictment" means:

-Q: Are you concerned that this is seen as a blanket indictment of law enforcement?

-KAEPERNICK: What's that?

-Q: It can be seen as a blanket indictment of law enforcement.

-KAEPERNICK: As far as what? I don't really understand what you're trying to get at.

-Q: You say people are getting murdered by police. You seem to indict all of police.

-KAEPERNICK: There is police brutality. People of color have been targeted by police. So that's a large part of it. And their government officials. They're put in place by the government so that's something that this country has to change...

Interestingly, USA Today omitted this entire exchange from its transcript. Here is how this exchange reads on USA Today's site:

"Are you concerned that this can be seen as a blanket indictment of law enforcement in general?

CK: There is police brutality. People of color have been targeted by police. So that's a large part of it and they're government officials. They are put in place by the government. So that's something that this country has to change....

Why would USA Today do this? The only reason I can think of is to protect Kaepernick. That might be fair if, say, Kaepernick was being asked entirely about sports questions and this question got tossed in there, but Kaepernick was specifically speaking about the politics behind his protest. 

The intelligence and knowledge of someone speaking on political issues matters. If Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or Barack Obama weren't familiar with the phrase "blanket indictment" that would tell me something. At a minimum, it would tell me that all three people weren't reading very many books or articles. It would also make me less likely to trust their political opinions. I highly doubt that USA Today would edit this transcript to eliminate all uncertainty about the phrase if a politician were speaking.  

I'd love to hear USA Today justify leaving this exchange out of their transcript. Because it's indefensible journalistically. The entire purpose of a transcript is to get everything that a speaker says.

But I've come to expect protection like this from the liberal sports media.

Already the PC Bromani community has nearly unanimously lined up to defend Kaepernick's "protest" even though he's still been unable to elucidate any tangible goal that he's seeking to change by his protest.

That matters because Kaepernick was asked how long he'd keep his protest going and he responded:

"Yes. I'll continue to sit. I'm going to stand with the people that are being oppressed. To me this is something that has to change and when there's significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it's supposed to represent in this country is representing the way that it's supposed to I'll stand."

So Kaepernick has started an arbitrary protest with no discernible goal and he's going to end that protest when he alone "feel(s) like that flag represents what it's supposed to represent."

I mean, this protest is a total joke. But the media won't call Kaepernick on it because most of the media is so liberal they won't even mention that Kaepernick said Hillary Clinton should be in jail. 

Oh, and Kaepernick also said that he had felt personally oppressed in this country. 

I'll just leave these photos here of Kaepernick with his family and with his pet turtle that he got as a kid.

If only we could all be so oppressed that we were multi-millionaires with gigantic pet tortoises.  

Written by
Clay Travis is the founder of the fastest growing national multimedia platform, OutKick, that produces and distributes engaging content across sports and pop culture to millions of fans across the country. OutKick was created by Travis in 2011 and sold to the Fox Corporation in 2021. One of the most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry, Travis hosts OutKick The Show where he provides his unfiltered opinion on the most compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics. He also makes regular appearances on FOX News Media as a contributor providing analysis on a variety of subjects ranging from sports news to the cultural landscape. Throughout the college football season, Travis is on Big Noon Kickoff for Fox Sports breaking down the game and the latest storylines. Additionally, Travis serves as a co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a three-hour conservative radio talk program syndicated across Premiere Networks radio stations nationwide. Previously, he launched OutKick The Coverage on Fox Sports Radio that included interviews and listener interactions and was on Fox Sports Bet for four years. Additionally, Travis started an iHeartRadio Original Podcast called Wins & Losses that featured in-depth conversations with the biggest names in sports. Travis is a graduate of George Washington University as well as Vanderbilt Law School. Based in Nashville, he is the author of Dixieland Delight, On Rocky Top, and Republicans Buy Sneakers Too.