President Trump used his diplomatic relations to free three American college basketball players after they were jailed in China for shoplifting.
The famed UCLA men’s basketball program flew overseas to Shanghai, China to kick off their 2017-2018 season. Although they were there to play basketball games, the program drew in more attention from a shoplifting incident.
Three freshmen from the team were caught shoplifting designer sunglasses on Nov. 8 from a Louis Vuitton store in downtown Shanghai. Cody Riley, Jalen Hill and, most notably, LiAngelo Ball were involved in the incident.
Ball drew the most attention in the incident because of his zany family who is always causing an uproar in the sports world. As a result of the popular following of the Ball family prior to the incident, President Donald Trump took notice as well.
While on a recent overseas trip to Beijing, President Trump approached Chinese President Xi Jinping about the situation. Trump asked Jinping to resolve the case, in hopes of sending the three players, who were under house arrest, back home to the United States.
“Trump shouldn’t have intervened just because they have some privileges being famous college basketball players,” freshman Morgan Fuller said.
After receiving Trump’s help in returning the three players back home, Ball’s father, Lavar Ball, did not mince his words. When asked about Trump’s role in the situation, Ball said, “Who?”
“Lavar Ball should’ve been a lot more thankful, instead of showboating, like he usually does,” junior Vaughn Jenkins said.
The response from Lavar Ball only enraged Trump and gave the president more reason to head to Twitter to express his thoughts. Trump said in a tweet that he “should have left them in jail,” because of Ball’s words about the president.
In the tweet, Trump criticized Ball as being ungrateful of what he did for his son and the two other freshmen. This tweet confronting Ball came only days after Trump called out the three players, demanding a thank you for what he did for them.
Although Lavar Ball did not have much to say about Trump’s role in the situation, LiAngelo and the two other players did. After being sent home from China, Riley, Hill and Ball held a press conference back on UCLA’s campus.
All three expressed their gratitude and thanks to Trump for his role in bringing them back home. In usual Trump fashion, he took to Twitter once again to accept their apology, telling them to “give a big thank you to President Xi Jinping.”
“The three players were young and made a stupid mistake, so I think President Trump did the right thing by helping his citizens out,” sophomore Luis Reyes said.
Unlike Reyes, some strongly disagree with Trump’s decision, saying the three men did commit a crime.
Freshman Daquan Ali said, “They made the choices that they did, so I think Trump should have left them alone and made them face their consequences.”
