'You Are a Freaking Idiot': Charles Barkley Continues to Attack Donald Trump's Supporters for Wearing Shirts With Trump's Mugshot
March 7 2024, Published 9:00 a.m. ET
Charles Barkley once again attacked Donald Trump’s “idiot” supporters this week for wearing shirts and other pieces of merchandise that featured the embattled ex-president’s mugshot, RadarOnline.com can report.
Barkley’s latest fiery remarks came on Wednesday – just a few days after he initially threatened to "punch in the face" any "Black person” that he saw “walking around with a Trump mugshot.”
According to the NBA legend-turned-CNN co-host, he would not actually “go around punching random strangers in the face” – although Barkley did clarify that he had a problem with Trump “comparing his plight with that of the Black person.”
“Number one, obviously, I’m not going to go around punching random strangers in the face – first and foremost,” Barkley explained to his King Charles co-host Gayle King on Wednesday night. “Secondly, people can vote for who they want to.”
“The point I was making, when Donald Trump compares his plight with that of the Black person, that is what I had a problem with,” he continued. “I want to make it perfectly clear… If you’re a Black person and you’re wearing a Donald Trump mugshot, you are a freaking idiot.”
“I’m only saying ‘freaking’ idiot because they won’t let me say what I really want to say,” Barkley added. “But you can figure it out. It starts with an F.”
The former NBA star called Trump’s supporters “freaking idiots” once again later in the program when King pressed Barkley about his earlier remarks about “randomly attacking people in the street.”
“I’ll stick by what I said,” the King Charles co-host said. “If you’re wearing a Trump mugshot around, you are a freaking idiot.”
“But you aren’t going to go just randomly attacking people in the street,” King pressed. “That’s the only point I wanted to make.”
“Unless they had Trump sneakers on too,” Barkley quipped.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Barkley initially came under fire on Saturday when he threatened to attack any “Black person [he saw] walking around with a Trump mugshot.”
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“First of all, I’m just going to say this, if I see a Black person walking around with a Trump mugshot I’m going to punch him in the face,” he said over the weekend before being admonished by his co-host.
“That was an insult to all Black people,” Barkley continued at the time. “To compare Black history, where we’ve been discriminated against, to his plight. Well, first of all, he’s a billionaire, and they are prosecuting him for stuff he did wrong.”
Barkley’s remarks on Saturday and once again on Wednesday were in response to a recent speech Trump made at the Black Conservative Federation Honors Gala in Columbia, South Carolina last month.
The embattled ex-president complained about the several criminal indictments against him. He then compared his legal woes to the discrimination faced by many Black people throughout U.S. history.
“Then I got indicted a second time and then a third time and a fourth time!” Trump said in South Carolina last month. “And a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.”
“They actually viewed me as…I’m being discriminated against,” Trump added. “It’s been pretty amazing.”