{"id":175036,"date":"2018-08-05T03:03:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-05T07:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=175036"},"modified":"2018-08-05T03:03:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T07:03:05","slug":"trump-passes-opportunity-criticize-james-ohio-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/05\/trump-passes-opportunity-criticize-james-ohio-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump passes on opportunity to criticize James at Ohio rally"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo<\/a>: Gage Skidmore\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. \u2014 President Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0insulted NBA star LeBron James from afar but passed up an opportunity to criticize him on his own turf, sticking to Democrats, the news media and other familiar targets during a campaign rally Saturday night in James’ home state of Ohio.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Trump\u00a0took the stage in a sweltering high school gymnasium north of Columbus, his late-night tweet deriding James’ intellect had already generated hours of online buzz in defence of the all-star from Akron who had just opened a school for at-risk children in his hometown.<\/p>\n

Even first lady Melania\u00a0Trump\u00a0provided an assist to James, her spokeswoman saying it appeared to the president’s wife that James was \u201cworking to do good things on behalf of our next generation\u201d and that Mrs.\u00a0Trump\u00a0would be open to visiting his \u201cI Promise\u201d school. The statement didn’t criticize\u00a0Trump.<\/p>\n

CNN’s Don Lemon spoke to James at the school and the interview included a negative assessment of the president, whom James said has \u201ckind of used sports to kind of divide us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just before midnight Friday,\u00a0Trump\u00a0tweeted: \u201cLebron 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the current and former professional athletes jumping to James’ support in support of James on Saturday was \u201cMike,\u201d also known as NBA legend Michael Jordan, who said in a statement: \u201cI support LeBron James. He’s doing an amazing job for his community.\u201d<\/p>\n

James’ publicist declined to respond to\u00a0Trump’s tweet, but early Saturday afternoon, James retweeted a post from the \u201cI Promise\u201d school and said: \u201cLet’s get it kids!! Love you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0rarely allows a slight to pass unanswered, but James appeared off limits by the time the president crossed the Ohio border to campaign for state Sen. Troy Balderson, the Republican in a special U.S. House election on Tuesday. His opponent, Democrat Danny O’Connor, tweeted, \u201cI don’t have to tell (asterisk) anyone (asterisk) what LeBron James means to Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

In remarks lasting more than an hour,\u00a0Trump\u00a0assailed many other critics while arguing that Republicans needed to control Congress and casting the midterms as a referendum on himself.<\/p>\n

He defiantly questioned the idea that, historically, the party that controls the White House suffers in the midterms, declaring \u201cbut I say why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would there be a blue wave? I think it could be a red wave,\u201d\u00a0Trump\u00a0said of his party’s prospects in November. \u201cThey want to take away what we’ve given. And we’re doing a lot of things people don’t even know about.\u201d<\/p>\n

He blasted the media as \u201cfake news,\u201d saying journalists \u201cwere terrible people,\u201d and went on a screed against illegal immigration. The crowd cheered and chanted the campaign staple rallying cry, \u201cBuild the wall, build the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0touted Balderson’s record on crime and immigration and claimed that O’Connor, if he won, would be a \u201cpuppet\u201d of Nancy Pelosi, who stands to reclaim the title of speaker of the House if Democrats seize control of the body this fall.<\/p>\n

He also gave an onstage hug to Rep. Jim Jordan, who is under siege after allegations that, as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, he knew of alleged sexual abuse by a team doctor but did not report it. Jordan, who has denied the charge, has announced his plan to run for speaker of the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim Jordan, how great is he?\u201d\u00a0Trump\u00a0said. \u201cWhat a great defender he’s been, what courage. He’s a brave, tough cookie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0brought up another regular target of scorn, calling Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who has lashed out at the president, \u201can extremely low IQ person.\u201d In calling three prominent African-Americans all but stupid,\u00a0Trump\u00a0once again left himself open to accusations of racism.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0also blamed the news media for incorrectly reporting that he was backing Rep. Steve Stivers in the special election \u2014 even though\u00a0Trump\u00a0himself in recent days had inadvertently tweeted his support for Stivers, who is in a different race, before correcting himself.<\/p>\n

He defended his trade policies and, at one point, seemed to suggest that the markets would be up another 40 per cent without his tariffs \u2014 but said the measures were needed or the nation would eventually have to \u201cpay the piper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ohio rally was\u00a0Trump’s third of the week and he has pledged to accelerate his pace further as the midterms approach. He travelled to the Columbus area from his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is in the early stages of an 11-day vacation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. \u2014 President Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0insulted NBA star LeBron James from afar but passed up an opportunity to criticize him on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":171972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jonathan-lemire","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}