Charles Barkley: Any Black person who wears Trump mug shot shirt ‘a freakin’ idiot’

Former NBA star and media personality Charles Barkley said any Black person who wears merchandise featuring former President Trump’s mug shot is “a freaking idiot.”

Barkley was asked by CNN co-host Gayle King about comments he made on the pair’s prime-time cable news talk show in which he joked that if he saw an African American wearing a T-shirt with Trump’s mug shot on it, he would “punch them in the face.”

“No. 1, obviously, I’m not gonna go around punching random strangers in the face, first and foremost. Secondly, people can vote for who they want to. People can vote for who they want to,” Barkley said this week. “The point I was trying to make — no, the point I was making, I wasn’t trying to make it.”

“When Donald Trump compares his plight with that of the Black person, that is what I had a problem with,” he said in comments first highlighted by Mediaite.

Barkley also doubled down on his take from a week before saying “if you’re a Black person and you wearing a Donald Trump mug shot, you are a freaking idiot.”

The discussion on CNN’s “King Charles” was sparked by remarks Trump made suggesting Black people sympathize with him due to his ongoing legal troubles, comments that were were widely panned as offensive by Democrats and Black leaders.

Last summer, Trump became the first U.S. president in history, past or present, known to have his mug shot taken during his arraignment in Fulton County, Ga. The former president was indicted by a grand jury in the Peach State on 13 charges surrounding his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state — and the case remains ongoing.

Trump began fundraising off of it almost as soon as it was taken, including selling merchandise and the announcement of a bobblehead.