What would a new NFL season be without a desperate plea for attention from former star quarterback and self-styled race prophet Colin Kaepernick?
The 2026 season officially kicked off last week along with the annual ritual of calls for teams to sign Kaepernick, who has now been out of the league for a decade, with the player-turned-activist all but begging for a job, telling US Weekly, “We got the cleats by the door.”
The former San Francisco 49er is making the rounds in the media to hawk his new book “The Perilous Fight.” During an appearance on the leftist “MediasTouch” podcast, he claimed that CNN contributor and former Obama advisor Van Jones tried to broker a meeting between him and President Donald J. Trump, one of his biggest critics who once branded him as a “son of a b*tch” who should be pulled off the field over his activism.
Kaepernick says Trump tried to get him to the White House after publicly attacking him.
“What was relayed to me was the outreach that came from Van Jones… it was immediately rejected. Again, this is after him going out publicly and trying to target me and my employment.“ pic.twitter.com/R0AyaavBY8
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 16, 2026
During the discussion, the topic of the Jones-brokered summit came up, with Kaepernick offering scant details other than to say that it was quickly shot down.
Host Ben Meiselas highlighted a 2018 CBS Sports report that Trump was seeking a pow-wow about race with Kaepernick and since-disgraced rapper Kanye West.
“You know, Trump was trying to make a deal with you,” he told the former Super Bowl quarterback. “After he said, ‘ Get the son of a b*tch off the field.'”
“He was apparently working with Kanye West and other people to try to bring you to the White House to do like a black summit,” he said. “Where they wanted you to basically, you know, have him put his arm around you, or you put his arm around him in the Oval Office and be like ‘he’s cool with the black community’ right? ‘He’s one of us. He’s our guy.’”
Kaepernick laughingly responded at the suggestion that he would appear in an “Apprentice-style, Kumbaya moment,” as Meiselas called it.
“What I’ve learned over the years is there is going to be a constant attempt to be able to co-opt people who are trying to work for the benefit of the people,” he said.
“What was relayed to me was the outreach came from Van Jones for this,” Kaepernick continued. “And you know, they wanted to have us come in, I don’t know the details around it because, candidly, as soon it came up as ‘Hey, here is the opportunity,’ it was immediately rejected.”
Kaepernick also said that the proposed alleged summit came after Trump was “trying to target me and my employment.”
During his first term, Trump had blasted the players who disrespected America and defiled the game with their kneeling and thrusting of “Black Power” fists in the air during the playing of the national anthem, a practice that was begun by Kaepernick, who, with the aid of the media, was elevated into a racial martyr figure.
But the activism had a cost, as Kaepernick’s exorbitant contract demands led to his departure from the 49ers, with no other teams willing to invite a cancerous influence into their locker rooms.
He hasn’t taken a snap on the gridiron since January 1, 2017, a loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Kaepernick also seemed to suggest that Jones is an Uncle Tom and a tool of the white establishment.
“We see the connection between Trump, the connection to Van Jones, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft, with the Reform Alliance. And ultimately what we see is on the other side of that, you know, pardons being handed out, and we’re seeing those pay-for-play right now,” he told Meiselas.
Jones famously described Trump’s 2016 upset of heavily favored Hillary Clinton as a “white-lash,” an astoundingly racist comment.
“Mr. Irrelevant” is the derisive nickname given to the last player picked in each year’s NFL draft; it could also apply to Mr. Kaepernick.
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