Former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe arrested at Huntington Beach council meeting after protesting MAGA and President Donald Trump
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KABC) — Former UCLA and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was arrested during a Huntington Beach City Council meeting Tuesday evening when he approached councilmembers after making an impassioned speech that likened the MAGA movement to Nazism.
Kluwe, a Huntington Beach resident, was protesting the council’s decision to place a plaque commemorating the public library’s anniversary. The plaque included the words “Magical Alluring Galvanizing Adventurous,” an apparent nod to President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
“We want to honor the library. We want there to be a plaque, but we don’t want MAGA on it because the library isn’t supposed to be political,” Kluwe told Eyewitness News Wednesday.
During public comment at the meeting, Kluwe began by saying that everyone was in favor of a plaque to celebrate the library, but not one that referenced MAGA. He then used his time to “say what MAGA has stood for these past three weeks.”
“MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing,” Kluwe said. “MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children.
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably antidemocracy, and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement. You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
Kluwe ended his speech by saying he would engage in the “time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.”
The former NFL player then walked up toward councilmembers and placed his hands behind his back as multiple police officers arrested him. Police carried him out of the meeting.
Kluwe said he spent about fours in jail before he was released.
Kluwe was a history and political science major at UCLA and says he sees direct parallels between what Trump is doing to the government and what Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s.
He’s calling for more civil disobedience from those in elected office.
“I want our Democratic officials to start getting arrested,” Kluwe said. “I want them to start actually protesting what is going on because what is going on is not American.”
ABC News contributed to this report.
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