Our president is failing once again. This time, however, he managed to attack someone that not only had no business being attacked but instead should have been praised.
LeBron James, now a forward for the Los Angeles Lakers after leaving Cleveland in the offseason, continued to help his hometown of Akron with the opening of the "I Promise" school. The school will be completed by the year 2022 offering first through eighth grade.
James also vowed during an interview with CNN's Don Lemon that he would provide free bicycles and helmets, breakfast, lunch, snacks, transportation within two miles, and access to a food pantry for families of students. The Lakers' forward also vowed to pay for tuition to the University of Akron for graduates of the school.
The school is costing taxpayers of Akron around eight million a year to build but The LeBron James Family Foundation plans to spend around two million annually when the school has grown to capacity. Mainly, the school is in place to give students that come from a struggling background a way to escape the streets and have opportunities in place for extracurriculars.
Trump went to Twitter though after James' interview with Lemon to not only state inaccuracies (shocker) but to somehow find a way to lambast a man who literally opened a school for at-risk children.
"Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. I like Mike!" Trump tweeted.
Not only is this tweet simply wrong about both Lemon and James, but it's immature. With Trump's history though, I cannot say I am surprised by this but rather more surprised by the timing.
The fact that the president decided that he should rip on LeBron, who worked alongside the Cleveland school board to open this school for at-risk students in the area takes an incredible amount of pomposity and arrogance.
This statement by the president is not only a racist slapshot at James but disagrees with statements that many different Republicans have been saying for years. I was registered Republican at one point (not anymore) and heard all the time from right-wing leaders that low-income housing and areas are setting up people to be in a constant poverty loop (which is a discussion for another day).
Yet, LeBron makes a school to allow kids, like himself, to escape that poverty loop by keeping them involved in academics and extracurriculars to keep them off the streets and still gets criticized by Trump.
If you can tell me how that makes sense at all, please let me know. I would love to hear it.
Trump continues to separate himself from African Americans athletes and citizens across the United States and this latest outburst is just another example of how out-of-touch he is with minorities in this country.
