President Trump's religious adviser, Pastor Darrell Scott, said that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been invited to a summit on race planned at the White House, The Hill reported Saturday.
Scott co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump and explained Trump approved the meetings, saying invitations had been sent to Kaepernick, as well as rapper Kanye West and others.
"[Trump] is 100 percent for it," Scott said. "He was very enthusiastic about it."
Scott said the summit would include entertainers and athletes of different races and political affiliations, explaining, "It's not going to be a black-only event … It will be a melting pot."
"We don't want to sanitize it. I want people from the left to attend. I want it to get heated, but I want it to be respectful.
"I want them to see and know the Donald Trump I know, and they will say, 'This guy isn't who I've been led to believe he is,'" Scott said.
Trump criticized Kaepernick when he played football for kneeling before games when the national anthem was played as a protest against police brutality. Other athletes followed Kaepernick's lead in also kneeling during the anthem.
West, on the other hand, broke with the long-held political relationship between Democrats and African Americans by recent tweets in support of Trump, even posting a Make America Great Again ball cap signed by the president.
West's comments sparked an outcry in the black community that led to a national dialogue on Republicans, Democrats and African Americans. Many celebrities harshly criticized West, while he maintained "we have the right to independent thought."
Scott said he believed Trump would attend the race summit.
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