Mob boss warns: “I just hope we get fair treatment,” Trump said at an Iowa rally Friday. “Because if we don’t, our country’s in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I’m saying?”
Trump also complained of Democrats casting doubt on the court because Trump appointed three of its justices, claiming that they are attempting to put undue political pressure on the court’s decisions.
“They’re saying, ‘Oh, Trump owns the Supreme Court, he owns it. He owns it. If they make a decision for him, it will be terrible. It’ll ruin their reputations,” he said. “‘He owns the Supreme Court. He put on three judges. He owns the Supreme Court. If they rule in his favor, it will be horrible for them. And we’ll protest at their houses.’”
“That puts pressure on people to do the wrong thing. What they’re doing is no different than Bobby Knight,” he continued, referring to the legendary college basketball coach famous for raucous arguments with referees.
It makes sense that Trump is invoking Bobby Knight here. Knight met the main criteria to be spoken of favorably by Trump: he supported Trump in the 2016 election.
Bobby Knight was a one of the all-time great college basketball coaches. He was a genius. He also valued academics, and as I recall all of his teams had a high graduation rate. But he said stupid shit all the time and was verbally (and physically) abusive to his players (and everyone else, even his friends). He once was so upset at a call fhat he threw a chair on the court during a game. There is a litany of other abuses o his wiki page, but this one stands out for me, because it was just a passing comment that sheds some light on how he thought:
Bobby Knight is the perfect example of a leader from the 70s and 80s whose personality simply wouldn’t be tolerated today without major changes in their philosophy. I bet Donald Trump thinks that it’s a shame that his life is controversial at all, but he is just one of a long line of abusive people who got a pass because they were perceived as tough leaders.
This guy got fired for physically assaulting a student athlete on tape. His privilege kept him out of jail. Fuck the both of them. They’re criminals.
No, he got put on “double-secret probation” for assaulting his player on tape. He got fired for grabbing the arm of a random student who “disrespected” him by calling him “Knight” and not “Coach Knight”, lecturing him on respect.
He held grudges, too.
Knight died this past November.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Knight
I stand corrected as he was worse than I described.