NFL rising star Jaxson Dart has tried to clear the air with his teammates following outcry from his introduction of President Donald Trump at a recent New York rally.
The 23-year-old New York Giants quarterback was all smiles at Rockland Community College in Suffern when he welcomed Trump to the lectern on Friday.
“What an honor, what a privilege it is to be here. And without further ado, I’m grateful, I’m honored, I’m pleasured to introduce the 45th and 47th president of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump,” he told a crowd of supporters.
Dart’s teammate, outside linebacker Abdul Carter, didn’t seem to take kindly to Dart’s appearance at the Trump rally, writing on X over the weekend, “Thought this s*** was AI, what we doing man.” Carter later said that he and Dart were good after having a conversation.
The quarterback addressed his introduction of Trump at a team meeting Tuesday, where Giants veterans Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Jameis Winston also spoke, sources told ESPN and NFL Network.
One of the things discussed at the meeting was keeping issues “internal” rather than sharing grievances publicly, according to ESPN.
Ahead of the meeting, offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor insisted in an X post Saturday that the “Locker Room is fine.”
The Independent has reached out to Dart’s team for comment.
Trump, who was in New York to support Republican Representative Mike Lawler’s reelection campaign, praised Dart at Friday’s event, calling him a “future Hall of Fame-er” and a “beautiful guy.”
Dart’s appearance was met with mixed reactions both online and on TV. Even the ladies from The View weighed in.
“For somebody to back a guy like Trump whose history, and discrimination, and racism goes back to housing discrimination in the seventies and DEI attacks and posting pictures of the Obamas as apes,” The View co-host Joy Behar said on Tuesday’s show
Behar mentioned how more than half of the football players in the NFL are Black, adding, “That is just the definition of stupidity and racist in my opinion.”
ESPN reported in 2022 that about 70 percent of NFL players are Black.
But Behar’s co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg and Alyssa Farah Griffin, argued that Dart was entitled to have his own opinion.
