Piers Morgan has called for Donald Trump to take the knee amid the Black Lives Matter protests.
Back in 2016, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick knelt down when the American National Anthem started to play during an NFL game to protest against police brutality to African Americans in the US.
And now, following the death of George Floyd (who passed away after policeman Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes) thousands of protesters, police and celebrities have been taking the knee as a sign of respect.
Following Floyd’s funeral, the Good Morning Britain star has said it would be a ‘moment of stunning unity’ if the President also took the knee in an address to the nation.
When talking to Nate Boyer – who helped Kaepernick come up with his protest four years ago – the 55-year-old said: ‘President Trump has taken an anti view of this, he called it disrespectful he was very condemnatory of NFL owners who didn’t stop this from happening.’
The controversial journalist went on to explain how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has since come out and shown his support for Kaepernick.
He added: ‘Donald Trump has doubled down this week, he has attacked Roger Goodell, as he would.
‘I wrote a column saying you know, what would be really powerful right now? A moment of stunning unity of respect would be if Donald Trump, in the Oval Office, in an address to the American people, got down on his knee.
‘What a moment that would be, I don’t think he would ever do it.’
The presenter continued: ‘If he would find it in himself after months of unbelievable torment for Americans, with so much division for both the pandemic and what happened with George Floyd, it would be quite a moment if he could find it in himself to do that.’
It comes after Morgan threw his support behind the BLM movement’s decision to pull down Bristol’s statue of slave trader Edward Colston over the weekend.
‘That statue became an emblem for the community in Bristol for them to walk past every day and them to go, “that guy used to own us, that guy used to trade us, that guy led to 19,000 black people dying in the transportation of slaves and we have a statue of him in the middle of Bristol, celebrating this guy?”’ he said.
‘He was a slave owner and slave trader – it’s a big debate if you want the picture of Churchill being defaced as your image from the protest march, it is going to annoy a lot of people in this country, it will detract from what you’re trying to achieve.’
Piers added: ‘The Colston statue removal, I get that, I think you could have brought a lot of people with you on that. Many would have said, “yeah, this day and age it is wrong to be celebrating a slave owner and slave trader.”’
Good Morning Britain continues weekdays at 6am on ITV.
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