Former professional basketball player Charles Barkley had some harsh words for President Obama's critics, saying those who denounced the commander in chief's attention to the NCAA and the "March Madness" bracket were simply racists.
"You people in American who are upset that President Obama did a bracket, why don't ya'll just go say you don't like him because he's black," Barkley said to TMZ while leaving a hotel in New York City.
Barkley made the comment shortly after Charlie Sheen took to Twitter, as reported by WND, to slam Obama for giving so much attention to the NCAA picks rather than other pressing political matters.
"Just go ahead and say it," Barkley said, Politico reported. "Cut through all the B.S., don't say he takes too many vacations, just say we don't like him because he's black ... that'll cut through the middle man. Ya'll want to believe he's from Kenya so come on, man. Stop making a big deal out of everything."
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Barkley has been critical of Obama on prior occasions. In an early 2015 interview with Sports Illustrated, the former basketball great said Obama could get tougher with ISIS, in much the same way Jordan's King Abdullah II did after the terror group shot video of one of Jordan's pilots being burned to death.
"I think [the king's] actions when they burned that kid alive, I thought his actions were heroic," Barkley said then. "He was like, 'No, you cannot do that to my people.' I wish President Obama was like that sometimes. I do. I think that is the way we have to treat ISIS. We can't keep thinking it will go away."
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