Charles Barkley Calls for Police Reform on CNN, Dunks on ‘Clowns’ in Both Parties and Dismisses ‘Defund the Police’ Agenda
Pro Basketball Hall of Famer and always outspoken TNT analyst Charles Barkley cast bipartisan blame on “clowns” in the Democratic and Republican Parties for their failure to enact police reform while dismissing the “defund the police” rallying cry among some Black Lives Matter protestors.
During his appearance on CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday, the former NBA star called the alleged murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police a “disgrace” that is not a “black or white” issue.
“This is about humanity. To see a grown man die before our eyes. If you’re not upset by that,” Barkley said, “it’s something wrong with you.”
Nevertheless, Barkley expressed his pessimism that the nationwide protests about the Floyd killing would lead to substantial policy reform on police misconduct and violence.
“The Democrats and the Republicans can’t even talk about police reform. That’s something we have been talking about since [Colin] Kaepernick kneeled and these clowns in the Democratic Party and Republican Party, that’s the number one thing they should do before they do anything else,” Barkley argued. “We need the cops, most of the cops do a fantastic job, but instead of defunding and all this other stuff, let’s do police reform. Everybody should be on board for that whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, conservative or liberal.”
Blitzer then turned to the president’s recent, angry Twitter outburst slamming the wave of kneeling protests during the national anthem, led by Kaepernick, to raise awareness of police brutality like that the resulted in the deaths of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice and other unarmed African-Americans.
“I don’t talk bad about the president. I’m not fan. I think the way — he’s such a divider,” Barkley said. “He goes off on these tangents and Antifa and protesters and rioters. He never said with human decency: ‘We can’t have a man killed on national television right before our eyes.’ That would be the right thing for the President of the United States. He’s not the president for white America or rich America. He’s the President of the United States. You got to have some compassion. Like I say, people can say what they want to but to see man get kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 44 seconds and die right before our eyes, if that did not upset you there’s just something wrong with your human decency.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
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