Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich Phones Reporter, Unsolicited, to Go off on Trump

What’s remarkable about this story isn’t that Gregg Popovich spoke out against Trump, which he has done before. What’s remarkable is that he seems to have phoned The Nation’s Dave Zirin, after Trump claimed that Obama never called the families of dead soldiers, without prompting. He just wanted to speak his mind, and so he did. Here’s what he had to say in the brief phone call, which he insisted should be on the record:

I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this president had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families are so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.”

“This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner—and to lie about how previous presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers—is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House, unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office, and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this president should be ashamed, because they know better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.”

Popovich is an Air Force veteran, so it makes sense that this incident would gall him particularly. It will be mighty interesting to see if Trump responds in any way.