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Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots NFL team, has said that having Donald Trump as president was like “having a drunk fraternity brother” as commander-in-chief.
Speaking on Charlamagne tha God’s iHeartRadio show The Breakfast Club, Kraft, 83, explained that, although he has been a lifelong Democrat, he became “a social friend” of the Republican presidential nominee in Florida in the early 1990s.
“And then when my wife of blessed memory died 13 years ago, he was one of four or five people who reached out to me and was really, really nice,” he continued.
“The only donation I ever gave to him was when he called me when he got elected. And I made a strong donation to his inauguration.”
While he admitted that he had believed Trump would be “great for the economy” before he took office, Kraft summed up the New Yorker’s chaotic tenure in the White House between 2017 and 2021 by saying: “I couldn’t believe it, it was like having someone who was a drunk fraternity brother become president of the United States.”
The mogul went on to reveal that he severed ties with the former president after the January 6 riot, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, brawling with police officers, raiding lawmakers’ offices and threatening to lynch then-vice president Mike Pence.
“I was very upset by what happened on January 6,” Kraft told Charlamagne. “And I haven’t talked to him since then.”
The Patriots CEO was appearing on the show to promote his anti-racism initiative Timeout Against Hate and alluded to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 as a motivating incident that inspired his cause.
“What’s happened in the world today is people aren’t caring about other people,” Kraft said.
“I saw signs in 2019 [sic] of what was going on in Nazi Germany in the 30s and I don’t want America to be what Germany was in the 40s.”
Trump notoriously reacted to Charlottesville by insisting there had been violence “on both sides”, pinning the blame equally on far-right agitators and the left-wing activists who opposed them.
Asked why he had not pursued a political career of his own or become more overtly active in American politics, Kraft answered: “Once you take a side politically, then you alienate people and I want everyone in.”
Trump’s White House rival Kamala Harris was interviewed on the same show earlier this week and agreed with Charlamagne’s characterization of the Republican’s policy platform as “fascist”.
“Yes, we can say that,” the vice president responded when invited by the host to comment on his contention.
Harris also expressed her confidence that she would win November’s election, defended her record as a prosecutor and laid out her new policy agenda to help Black men.
She suggested that Trump’s “way of trying to name-call and demean and divide” is actually a sign of weakness rather than the sign of strength his supporters view it as.
“The man is really quite weak,” Harris said.
“He’s weak. It’s a sign of weakness that you want to please dictators and seek their flattery and favor. It’s a sign of weakness that you would demean America’s military and America’s service members. It’s a sign of weakness that you don’t have the courage to stand up for the Constitution of the United States and the principles upon which it stands.
“This man is weak and he is unfit.”
