Trump issues a simple challenge to NFL players who kneel during the national anthem

President Trump issued a challenge to those NFL players who protested during the performance of the national anthem before their games by kneeling.

Here's what he said

The president spoke to reporters Friday morning and said that if NFL players really believed that the justice system had abused people that he was willing to listen to their appeals for specific cases.

"What I'm thinking to do, you have a lot of people, in the NFL in particular, but in sports leagues," Trump explained, "they're not proud enough to stand for our national anthem. I don't like that."

"What I'm going to do is, I'm going to say to them, instead of talk," he added, "it's all talk, talk, talk. We have a great country, you should stand for our national anthem. You shouldn't go into a locker room when our national anthem is played."

"We will pardon them..."

"I'm going to ask all of those people to recommend to me - because that's what they're protesting - people they think were unfairly treated by the justice system," Trump said. "And I understand that. And I'm going to ask them to recommend to me, people that were unfairly treated, friends of theirs, or people that they know about, and I'm going to take a look at those applications."

"And if I find and my committee finds that they're unfairly treated," he concluded, "then we will pardon them or at least let them out."

Here's video of CNN's report with Trump comments:

The 'greatest' pardon

Trump also raised some eyebrows when he said he was considering pardoning deceased boxing icon Muhammed Ali - many noted that this was technically impossible since the charges against Ali were overturned by the Supreme Court decades ago.

How did we get here?

The president has been using the executive power of the pardon to help allies, like conservative Dinesh D'Souza, and also help out those with high profile advocates like Kim Kardashian.

He's also been very critical of NFL national anthem protests and reinvigorated his critics when he ostentatiously disinvited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles from their customary White House visit after some players said they would skip the meeting.