Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is urging Nike to reverse its decision to cancel production of shoes featuring the Betsy Ross flag and has promised that if the company does so, he will make the first order.

McConnell weighed in on the controversy over the Fourth-of-July-themed shoes at an event celebrating hemp in Lexington, Kentucky.

“If we’re in a political environment where the American flag has become controversial to Americans, I think we’ve got a problem,” McConnell told reporters, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. “I hope Nike either releases these shoes or some other shoe maker picks up the flag, puts it on a pair of shoes and starts selling it. I’ll make the first order.”

Nike decided to shelve plans for a shoe featuring the 13-star American flag associated with Ross after a complaint by Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who made national headlines for being the first to kneel during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, told the company that he and others are offended by the flag because it dates to the late 18th century, a period of widespread slavery in the United States, the Journal reported.

Some conservatives, Fox News hosts and other Republican officials, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have lashed out at the company, calling for a boycott and accusing it of being “anti-American.”

The shoes feature a red-white-and-blue colorway with Nike’s swoosh logo on the sides. The heels are decorated with the flag, known for its circular arrangement of 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies of the United States.

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