Trump calls LeBron James a racist in feud over greatest ever debate

Donald Trump turned a question about whether LeBron James is the best basketball player ever into a personal attack, saying in the Oval Office that James might be “a racist” and adding, “I only like people that like me.” The remarks came Friday, July 24, 2026, after James, 41, said he would continue his career with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Trump was asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy whether James or Michael Jordan was better. He said he would choose Jordan, calling him “a friend of mine” and adding, “I golf with him. He’s a really good guy.” Trump then sharpened the contrast with James: “I think LeBron is maybe he’s a racist, but maybe he doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know. But I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”

The exchange fit a long-running pattern in which Trump has singled out James, one of the most prominent Black athletes in American sports, as a political foil. James has criticized Trump for years, including saying in 2018 that Trump had emboldened racists in the United States. That history has made James more than a basketball figure in Trump’s rhetoric, turning him into a recurring stand-in for the cultural fights Trump often uses to energize supporters.

The setting mattered as much as the insult. Trump was not responding to a policy question or a campaign issue, but to the old Michael Jordan-versus-LeBron James debate over basketball greatness. By answering with a loyalty test, Trump tied sports legacy to personal allegiance and brought race back into a conversation that already sits at the intersection of celebrity, politics and identity.

James’s move to the Philadelphia 76ers gave Trump a fresh opening, but the reaction showed the deeper calculation. James remains one of the most visible athletes in the country, and Trump has repeatedly treated him as a target worth elevating whenever the president wants to push a cultural wedge.