Donald Trump slammed LeBron James in an interview with Rush Limbaugh on Friday, calling the NBA player a “hater” and “nasty” in his latest attack on the Los Angeles Lakers star.
As The Daily Mail reported, Trump had harsh words for the former NBA MVP and sharp criticism for the Black Lives Matter movement, earning some pushback and reviving criticism that his attacks on James are tinged in racism. Speaking from the White House following his hospitalization last week for COVID-19, Trump spoke to the radio host on a range of topics that included the basketball star’s political advocacy. Trump said that the NBA had become so political that “nobody cares about it anymore,” and said he did not even know who was playing in the league’s finals.
“LeBron is a spokesman for the Democratic party and a very nasty spokesman,” Trump said.
The president added that he believes others have soured on James just as he had.
“Because, again, I’ve done so much for the Black community and people don’t wanna see that and he’s a great basketball player but people don’t wanna see a guy that way. They don’t want to see that. We have enough difficulty during the week, you don’t wanna sit down watching a basketball game and then watch somebody that hates your guts, okay, He’s a hater.”
This is not the first time that Trump has leveled sharp and often personal attacks at James. As The Inquisitr reported, he criticized James’s intelligence back in 2018, insinuating that he was dumb in a statement that was decried by many as racist. Critics pointed out that Trump has often reserved the most biting and personal attacks for people of color, especially women.
Trump also criticized Black Lives Matter in Friday’s remarks, saying he believes the name is “terrible” because it’s “such a racist term.” He accused the group of sowing division in the United States, adding that the national organization that bears the name of the otherwise decentralized movement is “Marxist.”
Critics have also taken on Trump’s response to the rise of the movement and the nationwide protests that arose following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, saying that he has been too heavy-handed in his response. James has emerged as a vocal critic of police brutality, becoming a leading figure of a brief player strike during the playoffs following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.