CNN can’t be serious. Seeking political commentary from Charles Barkley, of all people? That’s the low point Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins sank to Tuesday's CNN This Morning.
Barkley, who’s hard enough to stomach on his profession – basketball – certainly can’t be taken seriously on politics. The TNT NBA commentator went off on Republicans before blaming both parties for ruining the country.
Barkley said, “I am disgusted with our politics. These people are elected to try and make things better. The notion that you’ve got to have every Republican vote, every Democratic vote is a flat-out joke! I can walk up to somebody who’s a Democrat or Independent or whatever, we don’t disagree on every subject and these politicians have ruined our country.”
Barkley lumped the GOP in with the Democrats who’ve turned the southern border into an unmanageable humanitarian crisis, screwed up the economy, made a mockery of energy independence, left Americans behind in Afghanistan, and yawned at violence.
The heart of America’s political problem, according to Barkley, has been election denying by Republicans. He lives in Arizona part of the year, and he’s especially angered over Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake, who lost a close election to Democrat Katie Hobbs:
All these election deniers – are they only saying an election’s legit if they win? That’s the thing that’s frustrating to me. Are Republicans going to say unless we win that the election was stolen? Is that the motto we’re going to have for the rest of history? If they don’t win an election that it was stolen? And that was the thing that bothered me the most about watching Kari.
Now all Republicans are unfairly tossed into one bucket with Lake.
In 1995, Barkley mentioned he was considering a run for governor in his home state of Alabama. In 2006, he disavowed the Republican Party, declaring it had lost its mind. Yet he hasn’t said anything like that about the Joe Biden-era Democrats, who have turned the U.S. on its head in many respects. He also told Wolf Blitzer, "Every time I hear the word 'conservative,' it makes me sick to my stomach, because they're really just fake Christians, as I call them. That's all they are ... I think they want to be judge and jury.”
