TRUMP: NBA ‘POLITICAL ORGANIZATION’
WASHINGTON—PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump said Thursday that the National Basketball Association (NBA) has become like “a political organization,” criticizing the league the day after player protests over police brutality led to the postponement of playoff games.
Senior White House aides earlier had suggested that the protests were not constructive and were hypocritical considering the league’s relative silence about human-rights violations in China, where US pro basketball has a large audience. The president said in a radio interview this month that NBA players were “very nasty” and “very dumb” for kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustice.
“They’ve become like a political organization, and that’s not a good thing,” Trump told reporters Thursday, noting that the league’s ratings are down from previous seasons. “I don’t think that’s a good thing for sports or for the country.”
Trump, who was to deliver his renomination acceptance speech Thursday evening at a scaled-back Republican National Convention, has made restoring “law and order” to cities a centerpiece of his campaign during a summer of sometimes violent protests following the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose killing by Minneapolis police in late May spurred national unrest.