LeBron James makes fun of Kyle Rittenhouse crying on witness stand — and outspoken NBA superstar gets shredded for it on Twitter



Socially conscious NBA superstar LeBron James weighed in on the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial Wednesday by mocking the 18-year-old defendant for becoming emotional and beginning to cry on the witness stand.

James — reacting to a USA Today headline saying Rittenhouse "broke down in tears" — told his 50 million Twitter followers that he wasn't buying it, among other things.

"What tears?????" James asked in his now viral tweet. "I didn't see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court." He finished off his message with a trio of laughing-crying emojis.

What tears????? I didn\u2019t see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court. https://twitter.com/usatoday/status/1458521089152274442\u00a0\u2026

— LeBron James (@KingJames) 1636596954

As of Thursday morning, James' tweet garnered nearly 170,000 likes, nearly 29,000 retweets, and over 23,000 comments.

Oops

Of course, not all of the comments were favorable. In fact, James — who's unwisely opined on a number of issues beyond the basketball court — got his head handed to him by a several prominent Twitter users:

Lebron, great defender of the Chinese government's tyranny, also happens to be an unparalleled dumpster fire in the field of criminal justicepic.twitter.com/Hs9JeXnBt9

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) 1636635152

You're a genuinely terrible and unintelligent person.https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1458619464329670657\u00a0\u2026

— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) 1636601447

Did your ChiCom masters tell you to tweet this?

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) 1636631091

To know you is to dislike you. How could an individual be wrong on every conceivable issue? What an execrable schmuck you are, respectfully of course.

— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) 1636605781

LeBron James appears to be mocking people dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in this post. Why? Is this a joke to you? Not a good look!

— Aaron J. Carpenter\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@aaronjcarpenter) 1636605250

You would know all about faking.

— Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) 1636602595

glad you could take a break from promoting slavery in China that benefits you to mock a kid who defended himself legally.

— Jessica O\u2019Donnell (@heckyessica) 1636603857

The coward who\u2019s fought for nothing has comments about a young man who stepped into the breech to defended his community because our institutions failed. \n\nLeBron\u2019s existence as a celebrity is a reflection of our decline.https://twitter.com/kingjames/status/1458619464329670657\u00a0\u2026

— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) 1636599488

Sit this one out champ.pic.twitter.com/e8tfbJJhhR

— Barrington Martin II (@_BarringtonII) 1636600062

No one knows how to fake something better than youpic.twitter.com/XHLzaTX00d

— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) 1636635858

You get rich selling shoes made by SLAVES.https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1458619464329670657\u00a0\u2026

— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) 1636599830

If he\u2019s faking it, we better call Juwan Howard.pic.twitter.com/j5ZuKTwYSo

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) 1636600458

And conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller called James a "f***ing coward" while mocking him back, asking if he plans on offering "any support for your fellow NBA player @EnesKanter speaking out against the mass extermination of ethnic Muslims in China?"

But notable blue checkmarks agreed with James

As you might guess, a number of Twitterverse luminaries saw things the way James did.

"Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz, now 27," CNN commentator Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted. "Think about how much their loved ones have cried, real anguish and grief, not crocodile tears."

"F*** this brat's crocodile tears," Amanda Marcotte, a politics writer for Salon, tweeted. "Self-defense is when you are minding your own business, someone attacks you, and you have to fight back. Rittenhouse picked up a gun and went looking for trouble. He found it and, in a sane world, would go to jail for it."

And Carli Pierson — an attorney and USA Today opinion writer — also invoked the "crocodile tears" charge while writing that Rittenhouse came across as "melodramatic" and shouldn't be believed.

"Regardless of how Rittenhouse tries to twist his story — or twist his sad face into tears — his innocent kid act shouldn't fool anyone," Pierson said, adding that he "could get life in prison if convicted, and that's what he deserves."

Oh, and how can we leave out this one?

C R I S I S\nA C T O Rpic.twitter.com/F0Hnce60S8

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) 1636589734

Glenn Beck slams bogus reports that The Nazarene Fund pledged — and then withdrew — $600,000 for plane full of dogs: 'We're not charging to get to freedom'



Conservative commentator and radio staple Glenn Beck slammed a nonprofit group for what he says is a "defamatory lie" after they tweeted that Beck's Nazarene Fund pledged $600,000 to help them fly dogs from war-torn Kabul, but then rescinded the offer.

The group, "Veteran Sheepdogs of America," tweeted, "@glennbeck group committed $600,000 then decommitted helping get our flight get off. State Department is aware and NOT HAPPY."

The tweet naturally raised eyebrows, and received more than 1,000 likes in less than 12 hours.

.@glennbeck group committed $600,000 then decommitted helping get our flight get off. State Department is aware and NOT HAPPY. 😭

— Veteran Sheepdogs of America (@VetSheepdogsUS) 1630393774.0

What are the details?

Beck addressed the reports during his Tuesday radio show, and stated that The Nazarene Fund simply never pledged to help the group — nor would it have because the group did not have even the most basic requirements for a nonprofit organization to assist such as proof of clearance to get in and out of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

"I just found out about this this morning, and when I found out about it, I thought, 'That smells like bullcrap,'" Beck began the fiery segment. "And so I got a hold of the CEO, and COO, and everybody else involved with The Nazarene Fund because I saw a tweet from 'VetSheepdogsUS,' and normally I would immediately just take VetSheepdogsUS at their word, but seeing that it was against me or The Nazarene Fund, I didn't take them at their word. They're a 501c3, 'a veteran organization with a sheepdog mentality to advocate for all veterans.' The tweet went out this morning, it said, 'Glenn Beck's group ... committed $600,000 then decommitted helping get our flight off. State Department is aware and not happy.'"

"OK," he said. "The first tip is that this person doesn't know what they're talking about or they're on the wrong side is that they called the State Department and got somebody on the phone that said, 'Oh my gosh, that happened to you? That's horrible!' OK. Well, really? Because we can't even get the State Department on the phone usually. So I immediately called and said, all right. Does anybody know, is this true, what happened if it is?"

Beck said that after discussing the issue with The Nazarene Fund's executives, he was fully convinced that his nonprofit organization never offered any money to Veteran Sheepdogs of America, and especially not $600,000.

"Let me reassure you now: This is not true. Not true," he insisted. "There was no money ever committed to this group or for this plane. And apparently, they were going to take the dogs that were left behind — which, my heart breaks for the dogs, and I think it's wrong that they left the dogs behind. But they were going to take the dogs and put them on the plane and then apparently because they did reach out to us — let's see here, we were contacted by many of our partners asking about this plane that was transporting dogs and charging for additional seats at $6,000 to $10,000 per seat to get out of Kabul airport."

Beck said that The Nazarene Fund immediately balked when they heard that the plane — which was set for transporting dogs — would be charging people anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 for seats on the plane.

"We, of course, because we're good stewards with the money, we of course asked for some detail, we did our due diligence, tried to get some background. ... So we got a hold of the person who was selling these tickets and he asked us for $600,000. Well, we don't ever sell tickets," he fumed. "We won't get involved with people who are selling tickets. You can do that, that's fine; but we're not charging to get to freedom. I don't think that is right to do. And luckily, we have the money we don't have to. So we don't ever charge anyone that we rescue anything for those seats, ever."

He explained that the unnamed person representing Veteran Sheepdogs of America told Nazarene Fund executives that they were unable to provide any clearance or proof to get into Kabul.

"[W]e would have been happy to provide a flight, but they couldn't provide any clearance or proof into Kabul," Beck said. "Had they been able to provide proof of clearance, we could have gone to the next step, which was 'We've got some other questions.' My team, I am told, asked this individual, 'Can you provide clearance paperwork into Kabul, the callsign, tail number and clearance code.' If you don't have that, you don't have a plane! You don't have a way to get — give me your tail number! And if you have the plane, give me the callsign, the tail number, and then give me the clearance code, because nothing's flying in. ... I'm not gonna give you $600,000 if you can't land the plane. They didn't have it."

Beck said that his group would have had myriad more questions, but the group representative couldn't even answer the most basic of questions about how the proposed operation would work.

"How are you getting them through to the gates of the airport safely? Because we can't do that," Beck said. "And I don't know anyone who can. You're coming with dogs and people? How are you doing that? Maybe we can learn something from you. Couldn't provide that. Where are you taking them? How would you get them through the Taliban checkpoints? What kind of diplomatic paperwork do you have? These are all questions that would have been asked — some of them asked, but really kind of stopped at 'You don't have a clearance code? You don't have a tail number?' If you can't give us the clearance proof into Kabul, you don't really have a plane."

He concluded, "We would have loved to help them, I'm sure. I'm not making any of these decisions. ... As much compassion as I have for dogs, I love dogs, and it killed me yesterday to see those dogs on the tarmac, you know. The Nazarene Fund, we didn't come to you and ask to save a plane full of dogs. Now, if you could have had dogs in the aisle and people in the rest of the plane, I'm good with that. I'm totally good with that. Love to help them with that. But we never, ever said anything about giving them $600,000. We have had other, multiple non-profits who have been contacted already by this group who also have chosen not to fund this group for similar reasons. I don't know anything about them other than this tweet is a lie."

Beck tweeted the clip and captioned it, "Veteran Sheepdogs of America claimed @thenazarenefund 'committed $600,000 then decommitted helping get our flight off' in Afghanistan. I called those who spoke with them at The Nazarene Fund to get to the bottom of this. This is a LIE."

Beck's executive producer, Rikki Ratliff, also addressed the controversy on Twitter writing, "

@GPollowitz @glennbeck It's a defamatory lie. Glenn addressed on radio today. Look for tweet and https://t.co/wYq6TUzq8c write up soon.

— Reality Czar Rikki (@rikkiratliff) 1630426586.0

Blaze Media's Jessica O'Donnell added, "NO money was ever promised to @VetSheepdogsUS by Glenn Beck or orgs he is associated with. Vet Sheepdogs asked for money. GB org asked for proof of clearance to get in/out of airport in Kabul. Vet Sheepdogs did not/could not provide it. That's where it ended."

She later tweeted, "Reminder: @glennbeck spent days in the Middle East last week after raising $28 million dollars to safely evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan. If you're looking for someone to be angry at for not doing enough, Glenn should be the last guy on your list."

NO money was ever promised to @VetSheepdogsUS by Glenn Beck or orgs he is associated with. Vet Sheepdogs asked for… https://t.co/7mteLlJvei

— Jessica O’Boy-Football-is-Back-Donnell (@heckyessica) 1630424638.0

@VetSheepdogsUS Reminder: @glennbeck spent days in the Middle East last week after raising $28 million dollars to s… https://t.co/FEY1KfKdmW

— Jessica O’Boy-Football-is-Back-Donnell (@heckyessica) 1630425046.0