Steven Seagal: “Disgusting” NFL Anthem Protests Are “Holding The World Hostage”

Former action film star and current Vladimir Putin apologist Steven Seagal appeared on British morning-show television on Wednesday in order to throw in his two cents on the NFL national anthem protests that became big news over the weekend after Donald Trump made the protesting athletes the target of his daily Twitter blasts.

“I think it’s outrageous, I think it’s a joke, I think it’s disgusting.” A sampling of reviews of Seagal’s 1994 bomb On Deadly Ground? No, that’s what Seagal thinks of the athletes who took a knee to protest American racial inequality and police violence during the national anthem.

Seagal, dressed in his now-traditional costume of “priest from the first act of a movie where the priest becomes a vampire hunter,” appeared live via satellite from Moscow in order to discuss his pro-Trump, pro-Putin feelings with Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, and as all conversations do this week, talk turned to the NFL players taking a knee during the anthem. After assuring Morgan that he believes in free speech, Seagal says he doesn’t agree that athletes “should hold the United States of America or the world hostage by taking a venue where people are tuning in to watch a football game and imposing their political views.”

Whether or not Seagal actually believes NFL players are holding the world hostage, much like Tommy Lee Jones’s character did in Under Siege, he nonetheless called the protests an “outrage.”

Seagal later went on to say that anyone who thinks that Vladimir Putin (and if you’re looking for a thrill ride that puts 1996’s Executive Decision to shame, go to 3:15 of the above-embedded video and strap in for how Seagal pronounces Putin’s name) and the Russians fixed the 2016 U.S. presidential election must be “stupid.”

Currently, there has been no rebuttal to these comments from The Shallows star Steven Seagull.