Vice President Mike Pence left Sunday's football game between the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers after some players from the latter team chose to kneel during the national anthem.
Pence, formerly Indiana's governor, was present at the game with his wife to honor former Colts star quarterback Peyton Manning, whose number was being retired. Pence posted a selfie on Twitter before the game.
It appears the photo was recycled from a game he attended almost three years ago.
After the national anthem, Pence posted a Twitter thread followed by a statement detailing that he'd left the game due to the protest.
Less than an hour after Pence posted the tweets, President Trump took to Twitter to announce that the vice president left the stadium at his direction.
The incident comes on the same day CBS reported former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick would stand for the national anthem if a team signed him. This was later corrected to reflect that Kaepernick did not discuss future plans regarding the national anthem with CBS.
Kaepernick received national attention last year after he began kneeling during the anthem to bring attention to the killing of unarmed black people by police.
Jesse Naranjo
