President Trump unloaded on basketball star LeBron James Thursday night, calling James out for “racist rants” the day after he posted and deleted controversial comments threatening a white Columbus, Ohio police officer who shot and killed a teenage black girl who was about to stab another black teenage girl.
April 22, 2021 –
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
LeBron James should focus on basketball rather than presiding over the destruction of the NBA, which has just recorded the lowest television RATINGS, by far, in the long and distinguished history of the League. His RACIST rants are divisive, nasty, insulting, and demeaning. He may be a great basketball player, but he is doing nothing to bring our Country together!
James posted several follow-up tweets Wednesday night trying clean up the damage:
ANGER does any of us any good and that includes myself! Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!
I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY
ANGER does any of us any good and that includes myself! Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail! 🙏🏾✊🏾🤎👑
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 21, 2021
I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 21, 2021
This week Outkick summarized the NBA’s ratings problems cited by Trump (excerpt):
“Self-inflicted wounds are purposely ignored until they can’t be. For the NBA, that moment is inching closer. Coming into the 2020-21 season, NBA games on ABC — the league’s most important partner — were down 45% since 2011-12. On cable, it’s only slightly less damning. NBA broadcasts on TNT were down 40% and 20% on ESPN. To stick with more recent trends, the past two NBA Finals crashed to double-digit declines, with the most recent falling down 51% to an all-time record low. Last season’s NBA on ABC games fit that same category, recording the lowest average (2.95 million) on record…”
Trump has gone after James before, in 2018, commenting on an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon in which James criticized Trump.
LeBron James says he thinks the President is using athletics, and athletes, to divide the country — and that's something he "can't relate to" https://t.co/YAG0WlhcPz pic.twitter.com/b0Lp7oKIcy
— CNN (@CNN) August 4, 2018
Trump tweeted “Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!”
