CNN on Tuesday aired a montage of old Fox News clips to highlight the network’s double standards on sportspeople sharing their political opinions.
Since the election, on-air personalities at the conservative network have reveled in a new trend where athletes celebrate successes by imitating Donald Trump’s dance moves.
As liberal Fox News host Jessica Tarlov pointed out to her colleagues on “The Five” Monday, that seems a little hypocritical, given previous coverage at the network of politics in sports.
CNN on Tuesday put a few examples on display, with anchor Abby Phillip reminding viewers “Republicans used to revile politics on the playing field.”
In one 2023 clip, Fox News reporter Anita Vogel says, “You watch sports to relax. You don’t want politics in sports.”
In another video, from 2017, host Bill Hemmer said athletes are “not paid to take stands on social issues on the field.”
The mashup ended with an infamous clip of host Laura Ingraham, who said in 2018 that NBA greats LeBron James and Kevin Durant should keep their political commentary to themselves and “shut up and dribble” after they criticized Trump.
Many Fox News personalities also breathlessly clutched their pearls about Colin Kaepernick’s activism, after the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback started kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustices.
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Another progressive athlete, soccer star Megan Rapinoe, was routinely criticized on Fox News for being politically outspoken against Trump and about social issues.
“I’m not sure people are losing their minds over players doing the Trump dance on the field. It’s fine,” Phillip said after showing the Fox News montage. “But they did lose their minds when NFL players like Colin Kaepernick did not take a political stance, but took a social justice stance. There’s a distinction between those two things.”
“It is interesting that there’s been this big turnaround, it seems,” she added.