{"id":822774,"date":"2026-07-25T10:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822774\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:35:09","slug":"maybe-hes-a-racist-donald-trump-takes-bizarre-swipe-at-nba-great-lebron-james-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822774\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Maybe he\u2019s a \u200cracist\u2019: Donald Trump takes bizarre swipe at NBA great LeBron James | LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a bizarre response to being asked to weigh in on the basketball careers of \u2060Michael Jordan and LeBron James, the US president Donald Trump<\/a> said that James might be \u201ca racist\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s \u2060White House press \u2060conference, \u200bthe Fox News reporter Peter Doocy mentioned that James intends to sign with \u2060the Philadelphia 76ers, then asked the president whether Jordan or James is the \u201cbest ever\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump replied: \u201cMichael Jordan \u2060is a guy that\u2019s a friend of mine. \u200bI play golf with him. \u200cHe\u2019s a really \u200cgood guy. I think LeBron is \u2013 maybe he\u2019s a \u200cracist, but maybe he doesn\u2019t like Trump. I don\u2019t know. I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

James has not responded to Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

James endorsed the three candidates that ran against Trump in \u200cthe past three presidential elections: Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in \u200b2024. He also criticised Trump following the president\u2019s withdrawal of the Warriors\u2019 invitation to the White House in 2017, after the Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry stated that he would have \u2060declined the visit.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old has won the NBA<\/a> four times during his career and is set to compete in his 24th campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump also described the penalty Bryson DeChambeau received during this month\u2019s Open as a \u201ctough call\u201d. DeChambeau was handed a two-shot penalty after officials reviewed footage, deciding that he had improved the area of his backswing by flattening down some long grass on the fifth hole. The two-time major winner was also accussed of wanting to involve Trump in the controversy <\/a>while in discussions with officials.<\/p>\n

The president intervened in another sporting matter when he asked Fifa to \u201creview\u201d the red card shown to the USA forward Folarin Balogun during the World Cup. Balogun was sent off during the last-32 game against Bosnia and Herzegovina but the one-match ban was suspended for a year, allowing the Monaco player to feature in the last-16 clash against Belgium which the US lost 4-1.<\/p>\n

Trump was also asked at the news conference if there is a \u201cprecedent\u201d for someone with his job becoming a \u201cfixer\u201d for athletes. \u201cI thought the Bryson call was a tough call,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI saw him walking around, I see a lot of people, they\u2019re walking around looking for their ball in weeds, but I\u2019ve been watching that. I thought it was a tough call against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the red card was a very tough call and it worked out brilliantly. Look, supposing that they didn\u2019t let him play and we lost, everyone would have been angry. The way it was that they lost with their best player, now everyone\u2019s happy, including Belgium \u2013 but of course they lost their next game so they\u2019re not that happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt worked out great. Gianni [Infantino] did a good job in making that call. All I did, I asked for a review, I thought that call was not a good call.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a bizarre response to being asked to weigh in on the basketball careers of \u2060Michael Jordan and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-822774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}