Charles Barkley
 

Last night, before a riveting Knicks-Kings game (That is actually the truth. DeMarcus Cousins, Rajon Rondo and Kristaps Porzingis are fun to watch), TNT gave Charles Barkley a five-minute segment on politics.

Barkley talks about a variety of issues from Donald Trump's comments on Muslims to racism in the United States, to CNN's coverage of the election, to his affinity with John Kasich. Here are some notable quotes:

--"Twitter's where fools go to feel important. I'm never going to do any social media."

--"This Donald Trump thing has been fascinating, sad, funny."

--"Living in Arizona, I think the Hispanics are amazing people. To lump all Hispanics together, that was insulting. Now, to lump all the Muslims together, that's even more insulting. This is the United States in America. This is the greatest place in the world. Do we have issues? Of course we have issues, but to try to divide and conquer, which the Republicans always try to do, is just sad. It really is. I feel bad just to insult people. You've got these losers who love that because they're afraid to look in the mirror and say why their life sucks. They have to blame other people. Your life sucks for a reason–-because of you."

--"I've always voted Democratic in my life, but for the first time, I was thinking I made a final decision of voting for a Republican. The guy that I was supporting was Governor [John] Kasich out of Ohio, but he has not been able to get any traction whatsoever, so to be honest with you, at this point, I have no idea who I'm going to vote for."

--"CNN has done an awful job this election. They have followed ratings and sound bites this entire cycle. Think about it. I love CNN because they're part of our company, but they've been kissing butt, chasing ratings. They have become like Fox News for the Republicans, to be honest with you. They follow every single sound bite just to get ratings for these debates. It's been sad and frustrating that our company has sold their soul for ratings."

--"It's sad to say there's this racial thing going on in our country right now that we have not confronted enough. We have this very unfortunate incidents with the cops and we need the cops, so that's that racial undertone."

--"What we really have is an economic divide and we need to talk about how we need to close the economic divide, but the Republicans are capitalizing on the racial divide."

And one quote from Shaquille O'Neal:

"Thank you, Governor Charles Barkley."

TNT and Inside the NBA are getting some flak today for giving Barkley time on a basketball program to talk politics.




If there is any credit Barkley can get, it's that this appears to be Sir Charles speaking from the heart. He literally bashes another Turner entity, CNN, without thinking twice. Obviously, it's the viewer's opinion to determine how genuine Barkley's words are.

Chuck has tossed around the idea of running for office, specifically in his birth state of Alabama. Maybe his words on Trump represent the seeds of his political campaign?

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