The Round Mound of Rebound jumped in the political paint and threw wild elbows last night on TNT. Donald Trump, Twitter, and even sister network CNN took shots from basketball commentator Charles Barkley, who called supporters of the billionaire candidate “losers.”
“It’s just sad, it really is,” the TNT analyst said of Trump. “I feel bad—just to insult people. Then you have these losers who love that. They are afraid to look in the mirror and see why their life sucks. Your life sucks because of you, not the Hispanics. It’s just been sad to watch.”
The 1992 Dream Team member and 1993 NBA MVP spoke for many years of running for governor of Alabama as a Republican. But he never did and now claims he always supported Democrats in the ballot box.
“I’ve always voted Democratic in my life,” Barkley confessed. “But for the first time I was thinking—I haven’t made the final decision—I would vote for a Republican. The guy that I was supporting was Governor Kasich out of Ohio. But he has not been able to get any traction whatsoever. So, to be honest with you, at this point, I have no idea who I will vote for.”
“It’s been sad to watch that every time he insults people his poll numbers go up—him and Ben Carson, to be honest with you,” Sir Charles says of the Donald. “He started out insulting Hispanics,” Barkley told his TNT audience. “Living in Arizona, I think Hispanics are amazing. To lump all the Hispanics together, that was insulting. Now to lump all the Muslims together—that’s even more insulting.”
After Barkley told a Twitter troll’s mom to “shut the hell up,” Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson Jr. encouraged him to Tweet his thoughts. Barkley instead lashed out on TV at the Twittericans: “Twitter is where fools go to feel important. I’m never gonna do any social media.”
But others do, and they promptly shared their thoughts, such as they are, in 140 characters or less, which fewer than 140 characters read.
Traditional media fared no better in Barkley’s assessment. Though CNN executives clearly hoped for an incestuous plug from TNT, Barkley turned the gauche self-promotion—all too familiar to sports fans inundated with thinly-disguised Star Wars: The Force Awakens ads on the Disney-owned ESPN—into an occasion to trash the news network that hosts another Republican debate next week.
“CNN has done an awful job this election, an awful job,” he maintained. “They have followed ratings and soundbites this entire cycle.” Barkley called it “sad and frustrating that our company has sold [its] soul for ratings.”
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