Poll: Half of Americans Say NFL Players' Protests Are Wrong

Half of Americans surveyed say NFL players are wrong for protesting during the national anthem, but 60 percent said President Donald Trump was also wrong to criticize them for it, according to a new CNN poll.

The splits reflect just how divided the country is over the issue.

The results, according to CNN's survey:

• Overall, 49 percent say the protests are the wrong thing to do; 43 percent say it's the right thing.
• 59 percent of whites say it's wrong; 82 percent of blacks say it's right.
• 87 percent of Republicans say it's wrong; 72 percent of Democrats say it's right.
• 56 percent under 45 years old say it's right; 59 percent older than 45 say it's wrong.

However, 32 percent of those who say the players are doing the wrong thing also say it's wrong for Trump to have criticized them, according to the survey.

Those results:

• 60 percent said it was wrong for Trump to criticize.
• 51 percent of whites said it was wrong.
• 61 percent of independents said it was wrong.
• 23 percent of Republicans said it was wrong.

Those surveyed also split evenly about whether athletes that play professionally should be required to stand during the national anthem — 49 percent say yes, 47 percent say no.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS by telephone Sept. 26-28 among a random national sample of 1,037 adults. The margin of sampling error for results among the full sample is 3.5 percentage points.

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