Chris Kluwe, the former NFL player who was arrested at a California council meeting for ‘civil disobedience,’ has urged elected officials to follow suit.
Kluwe, 43, who played for several teams until retiring in 2013, was dragged out of the Huntington Beach council meeting Tuesday night following a rant in which he compared Donald Trump ‘s MAGA supporters to Nazis.
The former punter spoke against a plaque to commemorate the library’s 50th anniversary. The plaque will list the words ‘magical,’ ‘alluring,’ ‘galvanizing’ and ‘adventurous,’ which, next to one another, spell out MAGA.
The plaque will also feature a slogan made famous by Barack Obama, which reads: ‘Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!’
Following his rant, in which he branded Trump’s MAGA a ‘Nazi movement,’ Kluwe rushed towards the council members before being arrested and carried out by police officers. Kluwe was held in the city jail for around four hours before being released and charged with disrupting an assembly.
The ex-Minnesota Viking – who describes himself as a ‘troublemaker extraordinaire’ on Bluesky – has since urged elected officials to join him in his ‘peaceful civil disobedience.’
Former NFL star punter Chris Kluwe was dragged out of California council meeting by police after comparing Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters to Nazis
The 43-year-old has since urged elected officials to copy his ‘civil disobedience’
‘I want our elected democratic officials to start engaging in civil disobedience,’ he said in an interview with the Daily Pilot Wednesday.
‘People need to be aware that what’s going on with this administration is leading us down a really dark path. Right now, no one is willing to step up and do that. So, if I want to ask them to do it, then I have to be willing to do it too.’
Although Kluwe praised the Huntington Beach Police Department for their handling of the situation, he launched another vitriolic attack on the city council, accusing them of being unpatriotic.
‘People are speaking out because that’s the American thing to do,’ he told the outlet. ‘You’re a public citizen, your voice should be heard. But it’s very disheartening when your elected officials are not listening to your voice
‘[…] It is profoundly un-American to do what this council is doing, and I think there are a lot of people in this community that get that. At a very visceral level, what we are seeing is not how America is supposed to work.’
While Kluwe had no issue with the plaque, which was approved by the council unanimously as he addressed them, he simply could not accept the use of Trump’s catchphrase on it.
He told the council that MAGA stands for everything from ‘trying to erase trans people from existence,’ ‘re-segregation and racism,’ ‘censorship and book bans’ to ‘firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing.’
He also said that they were for firing nuclear arsenal overseers and firing military veterans and cuts to education.
The former punter played for several teams until retiring in 2013, making a name for himself for championing same sex marriage and being outspoken against religion
The punter and video game aficionado – who describes himself as a ‘troublemaker extraordinaire’ on Bluesky – spoke at the Huntington Beach council meeting against a plaque in front of the city library
The plaque also uses slogans made famous by Barack Obama: ‘Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!’
Kluwe spouted that the movement was ‘corrupt, unmistakably antidemocracy, and, most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement.’
He finished saying: ‘You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.’
The ex-Minnesota Viking then claimed he was to ‘engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience’ and stepped a few feet forward toward the council.
He was then quickly arrested and dragged out by multiple police officers, according to the OC Register.
Kamala Harris defeated Trump in the 2024 election in the Orange County city by about two points, though victorious Senator Adam Schiff lost the city to former baseball player Steve Garvey.
During his NFL days over a decade ago, Kluwe was already making the headlines for his political views.
Kluwe has said he is ‘pretty confident’ that he was cut from the team last May for being an out-spoken advocate for same-sex marriage.
Kluwe has also accused former Vikings special teams co-ordinator Mike Priefer – who was recently hired to Bill Belichick’s University of North Carolina staff – of being a bigot who repeatedly used homophobic language in front him and told him he would ‘wind up burning in hell with the gays.’
The ex-Minnesota Viking then claimed he was ‘engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience’ and stepped a few feet forward toward the council. He was then quickly arrested and dragged out by multiple police officers
The player, whose playing stats were above average, believes his problems began in the fall of 2012 when he started to speak out against the Minnesota Gay Marriage Amendment which attempted to have marriage defined as ‘only a union of one man and one woman.’
Along with a group called Minnesotans for Marriage Equality, Kluwe helped have the amendment voted down. Same-sex marriage is now legal in Minnesota, but Kluwe says he lost his career because of his beliefs.
He has written a scathing account of his final months at the Vikings in an article posted to Deadspin entitled I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot.
The Vikings have previously denied cutting Kluwe for off-field reasons. Last June, Priefer refused to go into specifics about Kluwe’s release, but said he felt ‘very strongly’ that the Vikings needed to part ways with the punter.
‘It was more consistency and productivity,’ Priefer said in a response to a question about what factors, statistical or otherwise, contributed to the decision.
Asked if Kluwe could have improved his production, Priefer said simply, ‘I just felt like we needed to make a change there.’
Kluwe did make the point that team owner Zygi Wilf had voiced his support for Kluwe’s public stance.
