In Lavar Ball, Donald Trump may have finally met a foe that he cannot out troll.
During an interview for the ages with CNN on Monday, Ball once again declined to thank Trump after his son, LiAngelo Ball, was freed surprisingly quickly from China last week after being detained on suspicion of shoplifting. Instead, the outspoken father said he'd rather say thank you to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
"If I was going to thank anybody, I'd thank President Xi. He's the president of China," Ball told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "Somebody can make a suggestion and somebody could do something. You got people that make suggestions and you got people that do things."
As Cuomo asked again and again if he thought that Trump helped with his son's release, Ball just kept right on trolling the US president with at times obvious glee.
"I don't know... I didn't see him talk. I ain't going to say nothing I don't know, I don't see and I don't hear. If he said he helped, that's good for his mind," Ball responded.
"If you help, you shouldn't have to say anything. If I helped you shouldn't have to... I don't walk around saying, 'I helped you now, come on, give me some love,'" he continued, adding that he couldn't believe that with everything going on in the world Trump was so concerned that "a father didn't say 'thank you.'"
Finally, Ball delivered his coup de grâce by asking Cuomo: "Did you thank the doctor for bringing you into this world?"
If you have 22 minutes to spare, you can watch the entire insane interview here:
Trump has taken credit for the speedy release of LiAngelo Ball and his two UCLA teammates who were detained earlier this month in China for stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store in Hangzhou, emphasizing that he brought up the matter with Xi during his state visit to Beijing.
While all three players thanked Trump for getting them home during a televised press conference, Ball has refused to give Trump any credit, causing the US president to take to Twitter on Sunday to say that he should have left the teens in jail.
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
Shoplifting is a very big deal in China, as it should be (5-10 years in jail), but not to father LaVar. Should have gotten his son out during my next trip to China instead. China told them why they were released. Very ungrateful!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
Though Trump claims that without his help the players would have been jailed for 10 years in China, legal experts say that, considering the value of what they stole, the trio were facing a maximum sentence of one year in jail, which could have been much reduced if they admitted guilt, showed remorse, and paid compensation.
Meanwhile, there are doubts over whether the three teens would have spent any time at all in Chinese jail with some accusing Trump of wasting his political clout on something that the Chinese were already planning on doing anyway.
On Twitter, Shanghaiist alumnus Patrick Lozada revealed that according to the UCLA players' Chinese tour guide, the three freshmen had already been bailed out with help from Alibaba before Trump even arrived in China, and the Chinese e-commerce giant was working on securing their release, having invited the players to China in the first place for a game in Shanghai against Georgia Tech.
I know the Chinese tour guide for the shoplifting UCLA ball players. Says the players had already been bailed out by (Alibaba) the time Trump intervened; weren't going to jail anyway. #Ballgate pic.twitter.com/cINq7Y8GwF
Patrick Lozada (_lozada) November 20, 2017
The tour guide writes that even without Trump's intervention, the players likely would only have been stuck in China for 10 more days, adding that the US president did at least save the trio quite a lot of money in accommodation and lawyer fees, along with possible fines. The three players returned back to the US with a clean record with all shoplifting charges against them dropped. They were not even officially deported.
UPDATE: Trump has, of course, responded to Lavar Ball on Twitter:
It wasn’t the White House, it wasn’t the State Department, it wasn’t father LaVar’s so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence - IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man’s version of Don King, but without the hair. Just think..
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2017
...LaVar, you could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you. But remember LaVar, shoplifting is NOT a little thing. It’s a really big deal, especially in China. Ungrateful fool!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2017