Former sports activities broadcaster turned political guide Michele Tafoya is taking Michael Strahan at his phrase after the previous Giants nice was caught up in controversy when he didn’t put his hand over his coronary heart throughout an NFL pregame present on Fox over the weekend.
Strahan broke his silence over the nationwide anthem controversy in a video posted to Instagram, explaining he wasn’t protesting something however had merely been “caught up in the moment.”
Tafoya posted on social media on Wednesday morning that she discovered the reason “honest and heartfelt.”
“We wondered what was in the mind and heart of @michaelstrahan,” she wrote. “He told us, and (in my estimation) he was honest and heartfelt.”
Tafoya had served as a sideline reporter on “Sunday Night Football” from 2011-22 earlier than leaving sports activities broadcasting and turning her consideration to the political area.
A day after she left sports activities media, she joined Republican Kendall Qualls’ marketing campaign for Minnesota governor as marketing campaign co-chair.
She has continued to make media appearances, discussing politics and tradition.
She additionally hosts her personal podcast.
The Strahan controversy started on Sunday whereas “Fox NFL Sunday” was broadcasting from a naval base in San Diego as a part of an annual Veterans Day celebration the community’s pregame present does every year.
Whereas the nationwide anthem performed, the digital camera panned to the Fox panel as all of them held their fingers over their hearts because it performed, apart from Strahan.
The picture of Strahan created a firestorm on-line, regardless of Strahan’s help of veterans, veteran causes and the truth that his personal father, Maj. Gene W. Strahan. Sr. served 23 years in the USA Military.
Strahan remained silent on the controversy till releasing the Instagram video days after all of it first started and hours after he was confronted by a Each day Mail reporter outdoors his dwelling on Tuesday.
“I have nothing to protest, I have no statement to be made,” Strahan stated on Instagram. The one assertion that needs to be made that I need to make is I really like the army, I’ve all the time beloved the army and I’ll all the time love the army. I achieve this many packages to assist veterans and troopers. I grew up on a army base with a father who was a significant within the military. My brother, my sister, my cousins, all of them served within the army — I’m a army brat.
“And so the fact of somebody saying that, you know, I’m unpatriotic, couldn’t be any further from the truth.”