Trump Demands That N.F.L. Players Stand During Russian National Anthem

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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a series of early-morning tweets on Sunday, Donald J. Trump demanded that the Russian national anthem be played before every National Football League game and that all N.F.L. players stand during the performance.

Trump asserted that playing the Russian anthem was a “necessary gesture of good will from the USA to our No. 1 ally,” and that “any player who refuses to stand for the Russian antem [sic] hates America!”

Seeming to double down on his demand, Trump tweeted that all N.F.L. players must remain standing while the color guard unfurls the flag of the Russian Federation.

Trump’s insistence that football players stand for the Russian anthem appeared to come as a surprise to the director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, who first heard about it while appearing at a security forum, in Bethesda, Maryland.

“What kind of fucking bullshit is this?” Coats said, later saying that he meant no disrespect by that remark.