President Donald Trump has weighed in on the NBA GOAT debate, and he prefers Michael Jordan over LeBron James, who he speculates might be racist.
Trump, 80, was asked about the long-held basketball argument on Friday, July 24, shortly after James, 41, announced that he would sign with the Philadelphia 76ers.
“Michael Jordan’s a guy that’s a friend of mine,” Trump said. “I play golf with him. He’s a really good guy.”
He then added, “And I think LeBron, maybe he’s a racist. But maybe he doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know. I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”
It is not clear what Trump was referring to when he questioned if James might be racist.
James has been an outspoken detractor of Trump throughout both of his terms as President. He endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, saying she was better equipped to make sure kids didn’t “fall through the cracks.”
“When I look at this year’s presidential race, it’s clear which candidate believes the same thing,” he said at the time. “Only one person running truly understands the struggles of an Akron child born into poverty. And when I think about the kinds of policies and ideas the kids in my foundation need from our government, the choice is clear. That candidate is Hillary Clinton.”
He also endorsed former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris in each of their campaigns against Trump.
“What are we even talking about here??” he wrote via X the week before the 2024 election. “When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!”
In 2020, when Trump said he turned off an NBA game after seeing players kneel for the national anthem, James said, “I really don’t think the basketball community are sad about losing his viewership, him viewing the game. And that’s all I got to say.”
Jordan, for his part, has famously stayed out of politics throughout his career and does not publicly endorse candidates for office.
He angered Democrats in 1990 when he refused to endorse the party’s candidate in a North Carolina senate race when he said “Republicans buy shoes too.” (Jordan, 63, and Nike launched Jordan Brand six years before, kickstarting arguably the most successful athlete-brand partnership of all-time.)
In ESPN’s 2020 documentary, The Last Dance, which detailed Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls, Jordan reflected on the comment, which he said was made “in jest.”
“It was thrown off the cuff. My mother asked to do a PSA for [Democratic candidate] Harvey Gantt, and I said, ‘Look, Mom, I’m not speaking out of pocket about someone that I don’t know. But I will send a contribution to support him.’ Which is what I did.”
