Charles Barkley has made a career out of saying exactly what’s on his mind, and he has never been shy about where he stands on President Donald Trump.
The NBA legend has called out the shift that’s taken hold in America over the last decade, one he can see in how people talk, what they post, and what they no longer bother to hide.
But in his latest sit-down, the Hall of Famer didn’t just knock the president’s politics. He pinned something far uglier on him.
And when the conversation turned to one of Trump’s most infamous insults toward a female reporter, Barkley flipped it right back on him with a single question about Barack Obama.
His remarks were made on “The Chris Cuomo Project” podcast, hosted by the former CNN anchor, in an episode released in early October.
Barkley didn’t spare either party, ripping progressive calls to scrap ICE and prisons.
But his sharpest words were saved for the man in the Oval Office.
The former Philadelphia 76ers player recalled having run-ins with Trump around New York years before he ran for office and found him friendly, so he was willing to give him a chance, according to a transcript published by Fadeaway World.
Instead, Barkley said, Trump grew “more bitter and angry,” wasting his energy on late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert instead of gas prices, crime and health care costs.
Then Barkley named what he considers one of the worst things about Trump, and he didn’t soften it.
“He’s made it popular to be racist,” he said, as seen in a clip posted on X.
“There’s no consequences for being racist now. A lot of people are wearing it with a badge of courage. He never denounces it. Nah, he should denounce it. He’s made it more acceptable to be racist,” Barkley continued.
In his eyes, racism didn’t suddenly appear. It came out of hiding and revealed people’s true feelings.
Barkely told Cuomo that people once kept quiet about their prejudice, but now feel “confident and comfortable” saying it out loud. He he believes is exactly why Trump keeps getting away with it more and more.
In another clip shared on the same platform, Cuomo brought up the November 2025 incident aboard Air Force One. Trump pointed at Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey and snapped, “Quiet, piggy,” after she pressed him about the Epstein files.
The insult set social media on fire at the time, and Barkley went straight for the double standard.
“Can you imagine President Obama saying that to a white woman? Call her Miss Piggy?” the retired athlete asked. “If President Obama called a white woman Miss Piggy, America would be up in arms and be like, ‘Can you believe this dude said that?'”
As for why Trump keeps skating by, Barkley believes money plays a big factor.
“I think that people are learning now that rich people really don’t care about America. They care about money first and foremost,” he said.
Clips of Barkley’s interview pertaining to public racism quickly made the rounds on social media, and his words had a strong reaction. “Tell him Charles! … So much racism with no consequences,” one supporter wrote.
Another person wrote, “Charles Barkley is 100% correct. Trump encourage racists to be open in public to be racist and spew their racism, bigotry and hate.”
“Barkley is spot on in his comments, whether you like him or not does not change the accuracy of those comments,” noted a third social media user.
A fourth person argued that “People are realizing the more racist they are the safer they are.”
Barkley’s frustration with Trump isn’t new, but his language has definitely sharpened. In 2017, he blasted the president for calling NFL players who knelt during the national anthem “SOBs.” Two years later, he said he was “leery” of calling people racist but insisted Trump could do “a much better job of denouncing white nationalism.”
Now he says Trump doesn’t denounce it at all.
By December 2023, Barkley was accusing Trump of using “pseudo-racist rhetoric” on his short-lived CNN show “King Charles” with Gayle King, saying it was one of the reasons he couldn’t vote for him, according to The Hill.
His comments land as Trump’s treatment of the press stays under a microscope. Just last week, the president drew backlash for going after another female reporter in front of a crowd of tech executives.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 6, Trump has not publicly responded to Barkley. That silence stands out for a president who usually never ceases a moment to clap back at critics.
Charles Barkley: “I think one of the worst things about Trump, he’s made it popular to be racist. There’s no consequences for being racist now. A lot of people are wearing it with a badge of courage. He never denounces it. Nah, he should denounce it. He’s made it more acceptable to be racist”
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) October 4, 2026
