LaVar Ball refuses to thank Trump for son’s China release in very awkward interview

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LaVar Ball sat down with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday to talk about his son LiAngelo Ball’s shoplifting arrest in China and why, in LaVar’s opinion, he doesn’t need to thank President Donald Trump for helping to get the UCLA basketball player and his two teammates released.

“It just doesn’t make any sense why you didn’t thank him,” Cuomo stated.

“Did you thank the doctor for bringing you into this world?” Ball asked.

To that point Cuomo didn’t have an answer, he simply laughed.

–Trump fires back at LaVar Ball: ‘I should have left them in jail!’–

“Well you better go back and find him, ‘cause you lucky,” Ball said, also with a laugh.

But the interview wasn’t all smiles. For over 20 minutes the two men butted heads and often talked in circles as Cuomo tried to get Ball to acknowledge Trump’s hand in getting his son released from Chinese custody. Ball, however, refused to pivot and, at times, failed to make sense.

It was by all account an awkward exchange.

After Ball previously downplayed Trump’s role in LiAngelo’s release, in true to form fashion the president took to Twitter to unleash his attack.

“Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal,” Trump wrote. “I should have left them in jail!”

The day before Trump’s tweet, Ball told ESPN that he was annoyed with everyone exaggerating the incident in general as well as Trump’s role in the release of the basketball players.

“Who?” LaVar Ball said on ESPN when asked about Trump’s role in the situation. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”

LiAngelo and the other two players have apologized for what they did and did thank Trump in their statements on Wednesday.

In the CNN interview, LaVar Ball said if Trump had brought the players back with him on Air Force One he would have thanked him.

“I would’ve said ‘Thank you’ if he would’ve put him on his plane and took him home,” Ball said. “Then I would’ve said, ‘Thank you Mr. Trump for taking my boys out of China and taking them back to the U.S.’

“There’s a lot of room on that plane. I would have said thank you kindly to that.”

Ball also suggested that it was him that did more to facilitate the release of the players than Trump did.

“I had some people that had boots on the ground that knew the situation when we first got there,” Ball said when asked if he did more than Trump to help.

Even after being pressed by Cuomo repeatedly to thank the president, Ball refused and said he would like to pass a message onto Trump.

“Tell Donald Trump to have a great Thanksgiving because Big Baller is.”