Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who has long given well-thought-out responses to a host of social and political issues, spent six minutes of his press conference before tonight’s game against the Pistons harshly criticizing President-elect Donald Trump, and the fact that people voted for him after the campaign he ran.
Popovich said he was “just sick to my stomach” because of “the disgusting tenor and tone and all of the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic,” and that the scariest part was living in a “country where half of the people ignored all of that to elect someone.”
Popovich said he desired for Trump to be a successful president like any “reasonable person” would, but went on express dismay that “people can just gloss that over, start talking about the transition team, and we’re all going to be kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about any of those things.”
His strongest comments came at the end, when he empathized with those who aren’t like him—a rich white man:
I’m a rich white guy, and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all of that. My final conclusion is, my big fear is—we are Rome.
You can read a full transcript over at mysanantonio.com, or listen to Popovich below.