"They just saw him as this scumbag huckster," ...

[babylonsister]

http://www.newsweek.com/trumps-nfl-fight-dates-back-failed-usfl-experiment-80s-jeff-pearlman-670843?utm_campaign=NewsweekFacebookSF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social


Trump's NFL Fight Dates Back to His Failed USFL Experiment in the '80s
By Tim Marcin On 9/25/17 at 8:30 PM


President Donald Trump's war with the NFL is big news these days, but he's been waging battles with the league for decades—when he hasn't been trying to woo it.

Over the weekend and into Monday, Trump has railed against NFL players who have chosen to kneel during the national anthem to protest oppression of African-Americans in the U.S. Rather than stopping the demonstrations, the president's insults have appeared to unify the league against the commander in chief. Trump has long chased the NFL and the league has, in turn, largely rebuked him.

In 1982, the rival United States Football League (USFL) announced it intended to start playing in the spring, outside the NFL season. Trump eventually owned the New York City-area team, the New Jersey Generals. Newsweek spoke about the USFL with author Jeff Pearlman, who has a book on the league, The Useless, that's due out in 2018. Having spoken with coaches, players, owners and just about everyone involved with the league—some 420 people in total (although not Trump himself)—it's unlikely anybody has a fuller picture of the USFL's brief life than Pearlman.

It was Trump's undying need to get into the NFL that drove the billionaire to buy his way into the upstart league in the '80s, the author said. But the big league wasn't a fan.

"They just saw him as this scumbag huckster," Pearlman told Newsweek. "He was this New York, fast-talking, kind of con-man."

In the course of Trump's NFL pursuit, he made a fair number of enemies at the USFL and helped shuttle the league to an early grave. He convinced other USFL owners to challenge the NFL directly in the fall, and then led the charge on an anti-trust lawsuit against the football giant that netted a massive...three dollars. The USFL was dead by '85.

more...

http://www.newsweek.com/trumps-nfl-fight-dates-back-failed-usfl-experiment-80s-jeff-pearlman-670843?utm_campaign=NewsweekFacebookSF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social

[enough]

1. And now we as a nation have to play out the scumbag's grudges, obsessions, delusions,

hallucinations and paranoia.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Seems like an apt description...nt

[njhoneybadger]

3. tRump has failed at everything except

Russian money laundering

[3catwoman3]

4. They saw him for...

...what he was and what he still is.