Posted in: NFL, Sports | Tagged: donald trump, entertainment, HRL, Indianapolis Colts, mike pence, nfl, Peyton Manning, sports

Accusations Fly That Mike Pence's NFL Game Walk-Out Was Staged

Yesterday we reported on the fact that Vice President Mike Pence walked out of the Indianapolis Colts game after 20 San Francisco 49ers took a knee during the national anthem. The report was that Pence was there to help celebrate Peyton Manning having his number retired and getting added to the Colts ring of honor. Pence posted an image of himself and his wife in Colts gear on Twitter prior to the game starting.

Now multiple reports are saying that the whole incident may have been planned. The above picture had been tweeted out back in 2014. This is an image of him from yesterday's game wearing different clothes altogether. Even his wife is in a different jersey.

The Vice President was in Las Vegas the night before, flew to Indianapolis, then returned to California shortly after leaving the game. The Colts have a standing invitation for the former Governor of Indianapolis and Pence choose this game to return for the first time in three years. A game where the Colts were playing the San Francisco 49ers, where the kneeling started with their former quarterback Colin Kaepernick and where players have continued to kneel ever since. You could practically guarantee that someone was going to kneel during the anthem.

The evidence that it might have been staged starts with one of the reporters from the pool that was traveling with the VP. Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News says that reporters were told to stay in the van outside as the "VP may leave early."

Now just how early wasn't said, but to be left sitting in the van sounds like a short time.

But the second bit of evidence comes from President Donald Trump himself, who says they had talked about it prior and he asked Pence to leave if anyone kneeled.

Now, it could've been just Pence checking with his boss about what he should do if it happened… but add that to the reporters told to wait in the van, and it looks like Pence was pretty sure he was going to leave early. Why is this an issue? Well, besides the fact that it turned a day that was supposed to be about Manning into a continuation of the Trump vs the NFL controversy, it's also about money.

When the VP travels, there is a lot of cost involved, and the trip was estimated to have cost close to $250,000. Had Pence, knowing the odds that he would be leaving early, skipped the game all together the cost of flying Las Vegas to California would've been around $42,000.

And it continues a narrative debate over whether the protests are about racial injustice as the players have stated over and over again since Kaepernick started it, or if it's unpatriotic as Trump and others insist. Regardless of your view on this, the President has shifted the conversation away from where the players originally intended it to be.

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