https://youtu.be/Lp8LXmKdqx0?t=4m51s
President Donald Trump is once again under fire for criticizing a Black athlete. Now, CNN commentator Angela Rye has a bold response for him.
Trump slammed outspoken basketball dad LaVar Ball as “very ungrateful.” The statement came after Ball said on “CNN Tonight” Monday that he doesn’t “have to say ‘Thank You’ to everybody” — referring to the president.
As a result, Rye took up for Ball, his son LiAngelo, and the many other Black players Trump has come after.
“I think it’s interesting that regularly, the people who he picks on in this way are athletes of color,” she says on “CNN Tonight” Monday, Nov. 20. “He also attacked Marshawn Lynch today. There’s regularly this issue. ‘Bravo,’ say, ‘Thanks, massa.’ It’s ridiculous … I have to be honest with you. That’s not okay.”
CNN Political Commentator Mike Shields said there was a partisan debate about the aftermath of Trump’s involvement with the athletes arrested in China. LiAngelo Ball was brought home with his two UCLA basketball teammates after they shoplifted in the East Asian country.
Then, Rye broke things down.
“I don’t know what LaVar Ball’s politics are, I don’t know what LiAngelo Ball’s politics are,” she begins. “What I know is that whether it’s Marshawn Lynch, or a sports commentator like Jemelle Hill, or it’s a congresswoman named Fredricka Wilson, or it’s a congresswoman named Maxine Waters, or it’s Don Lemon on this particular network, this president has an issue that he cannot get past when it comes to people of color. This, to me, is not partisan. It is racial. He has issues with people of color, period.”
It’s true that the president has made it a habit to zero in on Black athletes.
On Monday, Trump called for Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch’s suspension when photos surfaced of him rising for the Mexican national anthem, but sitting during the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Marshawn Lynch of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders stands for the Mexican Anthem and sits down to boos for our National Anthem. Great disrespect! Next time NFL should suspend him for remainder of season. Attendance and ratings way down.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2017
Trump has made his disdain for sitting down during national anthem — which Lynch has always done — known during the 2017 NFL season.
In September, he blasted the league as a whole for teams like the Dallas Cowboys joining in the protest. The president tweeted in part, “ratings for NFL football are way down except before the game starts when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected.”
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And he has also taken aim at Colin Kaepernick. The free agent activist quarterback who started the national anthem protest during the 2016 season.
“It was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump,” he said at a March rally in Louisville, Ky.
Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Kaepernick said it was “embarrassing” that Americans had to choose between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
“Both are proven liars and it almost seems like they’re trying to debate who’s less racist,” he told press at the time.
In Lynch’s case, his mother hit back at the president.
what NFL team do Trump own ? oh yeah they wouldnt let him have one ,!! LMAO https://t.co/1rPa5jfMjE
— MOMMA LYNCH (@MommaLynch24) November 20, 2017
And although LeBron James hadn’t been targeted by Trump, he took a dig at him nonetheless.
U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!
— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 23, 2017
