The former NFL punter was arrested and carried out of the meeting after protesting a MAGA plaque that was set to go up at a public library. Video broadcast Thursday Feb. 20, 2025 on Today in LA.
Former UCLA and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe said Wednesday he has been frustrated with how Democratic leaders have responded to President Donald Trump's second administration, so he decided to get arrested at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting.
Kluwe, who made headlines in 2012 with his advocacy for same-sex marriage, used his public comment time at Tuesday night's meeting the to criticize the Make America Great Again movement, equating it with Nazis, and then walked over toward the council members, knowing he would get arrested for misdemeanor disturbing an assembly.
"This is my first act of willful civil disobedience," Kluwe told City News Service Wednesday. "For me, it's the fact that it's something I'd like to see our elected Democratic officials would do now because, frankly, they're useless.''
The retired punter wishes more Democrats in Washington would get arrested to resist the president's platform.
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"I'm never going to ask someone to do something I'm not willing to do myself," Kluwe said. "That's one of the things I learned from football -- basic leadership. You've got to prove you're willing to do it too."
Kluwe said he was behind bars for about four hours.
"A lot of it was paperwork," he said. "The Huntington Beach Police Department was very professional and courteous. I have no complaints about how I was treated."
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As part of the city library's 50th anniversary, the city council approved adding "Magical Alluring Galvanizing Adventurous," or MAGA, to a plaque to hang at the library. It also includes "Through hope and change, our
nation has built back better to the golden age of Making America Great Again."
"Hope and change" was then-Sen. Barack Obama's campaign slogan during his victorious 2008 presidential campaign while Joe Biden used the phrase "Build back better" during his winning 2020 campaign.
Kluwe, 43, said he grew up in the Seal Beach area. He starred at Los Alamitos High School and went on to play for UCLA. He punted for the Minnesota Vikings from 2005-12.
"I moved back here and have been a resident for like 15 years," Kluwe said. "The Huntington Beach Library is widely regarded in the surrounding area as one of the best things about Huntington Beach. The library is a civic treasure."
Kluwe said he objected to the phrase on the plaque because "a library is neutral ground."
Kluwe said most of the crowd last week that attended a library commission meeting were opposed to the language on the plaque.
"MAGA, as it is based now, is a Nazi movement, there's no other way to look at it," Kluwe said. "We cannot debate whether someone gets to exist or not, that's what the Nazis did and we saw what happened."
Kluwe said of efforts to remove references to transgender people in federal documents.
"The White House put out an order saying that trans people don't exist and you cannot get more Nazi than that," Kluwe said. "It's part of an effort to seize power. They want to have the power to tell everyone what to do and that is fundamentally an unAmerican ideal. We don't have kings or tyrants. We literally fought a war to start this country over that. Everything the Trump administration and the MAGA movement is doing right now is to create a king."
The council cleared the room for a break when Kluwe was arrested and did not address his comments when it reconvened. The plaque was approved unanimously and Kluwe is due in court on the misdemeanor charge April 16.
