As Arizona Cardinals fans quickly learned Thursday night, first-round draft pick Josh Rosen is not shy about sharing his feelings on a number of topics.
That includes politics, as we learned in 2016 when Rosen wore a hat that read "f*** Trump" while playing golf at Trump National Golf Club in California.
Rosen later said he wore the hat as a joke on the birthday of his friend, who supported Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders -- but he added he definitely doesn't care for Trump, who would be elected later in the year.
"Well, I think it’s no secret that I’m not a large fan of Donald Trump — from a policy standpoint and from a human-being standpoint," Rosen said in a Players' Tribune Q&A posted in September 2016. "I think it’s cowardly to run a campaign based on demagoguery and bigotry, and to incite fear so you can rally support for personal gain. He’s feeding off of racial tension and a lack of religious understanding, and a lack of sympathy and empathy for people who are different from him."
After he was drafted by the Cardinals with the 10th overall pick Thursday, Rosen played down his previous comments when asked whether he was concerned about having anti-Trump views in Arizona, a state the 45th president carried in 2016. Instead, Rosen hopes he can encourage young people to educate themselves and speak their minds on a number of topics, including politics.
"Being political in the future, I’m not pulling for one side or the other," he said. "I’m just going to encourage people to speak their mind and have opinions, and shape those opinions, have those opinions, have a conversation.
"I’m not pulling for one side or the other; I want to make it cool to be a good person and to talk and have conversations about everything, whether it be politics, whether it be anything."
Rosen was not happy about being passed up by nine teams before the Cardinals picked him, and admitted he might have been selected higher had he not been as outspoken throughout his collegiate career. But he said he doesn't plan on ceasing to speak his mind.
"Maybe if I shut up these last three years, I could’ve been picked higher, but I don’t want that. I want to be me, and the Arizona Cardinals know what they’re getting," he said. "They’re not getting a kid that’s going to say stupid things and piss people off unnecessarily; they’re going to get a kid that everyone knows who they’re getting every single day that I walk in the building."
