President Barack Obama has seen the video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice striking his then-fiancée and now-wife Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino elevator.
"The president was shocked by what he saw. Let's put it that way," White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on
NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
McDonough said that he and the president had discussed the situation in the NFL in general terms.
"I think we all know that Ray Rice being suspended indefinitely seems to be exactly the right thing," he said.
The White House issued a statement last week which said that the president views domestic violence "contemptible and unacceptable in a civilized society,"
CNN reported.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been condemned for his handling of the Rice affair with critics saying he took too long to suspend the player.
A bipartisan letter signed by 16 female senators called on Goodell to implement a "real zero-tolerance policy" toward domestic violence. Goodell has now instituted
tougher penalties for players accused of domestic violence.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said on CNN's "State of the Union" that if Goodell lied about how the league acted after it learned of the situation he might have to step down.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said the NFL handling of the Rice affair was "awful" and "outrageous." Speaking on
CBS's "Face the Nation," Gillibrand said that once the league had the video of Rice attacking Palmer, he "should've been fired immediately."
If lawmakers believe that NFL was not doing its job of enforcing a zero-tolerance policy on domestic violence, she would not be surprised if Congress held hearings into the matter.
Former FBI director Robert Mueller is heading an inquiry into the NFL's handling of the case, CNN reported.
The league has been buffeted by several incidents involving its players. Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings is facing charges of child abuse and has been indicted by a Texas grand jury. Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers was convicted in North Carolina of violently abusing his former girlfriend. He has been benched. Last month, Ray McDonald of the San Francisco 49ers was arrested on charges of domestic violence, CNN reported.
While tricky to calculate, compared to the national average, the arrest rate among NFL players is a low 13 percent — except in the domestic violence category, where it stands at 55.4 percent relative to the men in the 25- to 29-year-old demographic in the general population, according to
FiveThirtyEight.
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