Sport

Basketball legend Magic Johnson compares President Donald Trump to a dictator

Magic Johnson is not a fan of "all these bans and things".

The basketball legend, who over the last eight years made frequent trips to the White House to party and talk policy with his pals former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, told TMZ recently that Trump's executive order on refugees and immigrants was not only "not American-like" but just a touch dictatorial.

Up Next

Trump picks Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court

null
Video duration
02:30

More World News Videos

Trump fires acting US Attorney-General

Donald Trump fires acting US Attorney-General Sally Yates after she instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the president's order after concluding they did not comply with US law.

"It's wrong to discriminate against people," said Johnson, in Los Angeles on Sunday night. "We have a lot of great Muslim brothers and sisters who are here and doing a wonderful job of being great Americans."

The former Lakers star went on to say that the Trump administration's plan to build a border wall is "just not who we are as Americans".

"He's got to learn that you can't just be a dictator," added Johnson, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. "We've never had a president like that."

But the basketball player turned businessman, who co-chaired the Obama White House's "My Brother's Keeper" initiative aimed at young black and Latino men, was somewhat hopeful for the future.

Advertisement

"I pray to God that something will click with him," said Johnson, "or somebody in his cabinet can get to him to talk to him."

Similarly outspoken is Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who was born in Lebanon and is the the son of Malcolm H. Kerr, an American academic who specialised in the Middle East. Kerr's father was assassinated in Beirut in 1984 in an act of terrorism.

After the Warriors' Sunday game in Portland, Kerr was asked his thoughts on the controversy over President Trump's executive order banning Muslims from seven nations entering the US.

"I would just say that as someone whose family member was a victim of terrorism, having lost my father," Kerr said. "If we're trying to combat terrorism by banishing people from coming to this country, by really going against the principles that this country is about and creating fear, it's the wrong way to go about it.

"If anything, we could be breeding anger and terror, so I'm completely against what's happening.

"I think it's shocking and a horrible idea and I really feel for all the people who are affected and the families that are being torn apart and I worry in the big picture what this means to the security of the world. He's going about it completely the opposite – you want to solve terror, you want to solve crime, this is not the way to do it."

Washington Post, MCT