The president continues his pattern of belittling athletes of color.
President Donald Trump attacked LaVar Ball, the father of UCLA basketball player LiAngelo Ball, a UCLA basketball player Sunday afternoon, saying that he should have “left them in jail.”
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19,2017
LaVar Ball told ESPN Saturday that he was skeptical Trump had much to do with the release of his son and his two teammates.
“Who?” Ball responded when asked about the president’s involvement. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”
And though Trump wrote Ball doesn’t believing shoplifting is a “big deal,” Ball said Saturday he was just primarily happy to have his son back home.
“As long as my boy’s back here, I’m fine,” he said. “I’m happy with how things were handled. A lot of people like to say a lot of things that they thought happened over there. Like I told him, ‘They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes.’ I’m from L.A. I’ve seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses.”
Trump has made a number of tweets in the past calling out various athletes and sports commentators, people of color in particular.
He blamed ESPN host Jemele Hill for the network’s ratings after she called Donald Trump a white supremacist on Twitter. He “withdrew” the White House invitation for the Golden State Warriors after calling out player Stephen Curry for hesitating on accepting the invitation.
