Trump 2022 comment on LeBron in women basketball resurfaces

A 2022 remark from former President Donald Trump about recruiting NBA star LeBron James to a hypothetical women's basketball team has resurfaced online, becoming part of a renewed national debate over transgender athletes in women's sports. The clip, from a speech Trump delivered at an America First Policy Institute event in July 2022, began recirculating on social media this week.

In the resurfaced video, Trump jokes that he would become the greatest women's basketball coach in history. He outlines a plan to approach James and ask him, "LeBron, did you ever have any desire to be a woman?" Trump then says that with James on his team, they would dominate every opponent, winning by at least 70 points. He concluded the segment by stating, "We have to make it OK to talk about it." At the time, Trump framed the scenario as an exaggerated illustration of his long-held position that allowing transgender women to compete in women's sports creates an unfair competitive advantage.

The revival of the four-year-old comments coincides with ongoing discussion sparked by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham. In a July interview with ESPN, Cunningham stated she believes girls and women should...