Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe was arrested Tuesday at a city council meeting in Huntington Beach, California, shortly after giving an address where he likened the MAGA movement to the Nazi party.
The Vikings veteran, along with other local residents, was protesting a new plaque on display in the city’s public library which they deemed a “propaganda statement” for including the words “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing,” and “Adventurous” to seemingly spell out MAGA.
When addressing the members of the council, however, the former NFL athlete went the extra mile to make his feelings on MAGA abundantly clear by spelling out what the acronym has really “stood for” over the past few weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term.
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“MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing,” Kluwe said.
“MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children.”
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably antidemocracy, and, most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement,” he continued. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
Kluwe then proceeded to walk up to the council floor in an act of “peaceful civil disobedience,” but was quickly pinned to the ground by law enforcement who handcuffed him and carried him out of the room. He was cited and released after spending four hours in custody Tuesday according to the New York Post.
Kluwe was an athlete in the NFL from 2005 to 2013. He played eight seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, but later claimed in an op-ed that he was removed from the team for publicly supporting same-sex marriage. The Vikings denied the allegations.
