Americans largely disapprove of athletes staging protests during the national anthem but they also do not like President Donald Trump's handling of the issue, according to two opinion polls published on Friday.

Fifty-two percent of the people surveyed by CBS News said they disapprove of protests during The Star-Spangled Banner while 38 percent said they approve.

In a separate poll done for CNN, 49 percent said players who protest by kneeling during the anthem are doing the "wrong thing" to express their political opinions.

Forty-three percent said they are doing the "right thing."

While neither refers specifically to the issue of race, the twin polls come as America grapples with a protest movement that began last year when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the anthem to draw attention to police brutality against African-Americans.

Both the CBS News and CNN pollsters said reactions were split along partisan lines.

Sixty-seven percent of Democrats in the CBS News poll approved of the protests while 85 percent of Republicans disapproved, numbers which were similar in the CNN poll.

Trump created a firestorm last week when he called on owners of National Football League teams to fire any "son of a bitch" who does not stand during the national anthem.

Trump's comments prompted more players than ever to take a knee during the anthem at last week's games while others linked arms in a rebuke to the president.

Forty-eight percent of those polled by CBS News said they disapprove of Trump's comments on the protests while 38 percent said they approve.

Sixty percent of those surveyed by CNN said Trump did the wrong thing by criticizing the athletes while 34 percent said he did the right thing.

The CNN poll also asked respondents whether they planned to boycott NFL games, broadcasts or products because of the protests.

Sixty-three percent said they did not plan to boycott, 24 said they planned to boycott, eight percent said they do not watch games or buy products and the remainder said they do not know or were undecided.

The CNN poll of 1,037 people was conducted by research company SSRS with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The CBS News poll of 1,335 US residents was conducted by YouGov with a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

Source: AFP