Outspoken NBA superstar LeBron James is capitalizing on a viral comment made about his growing political activism by Fox News host and LifeZette co-founder Laura Ingraham earlier this year.
“Shut up and dribble,” Ingraham playfully said on her Fox News show, “The Ingraham Angle,” about James and other politically outspoken athletes, spinning the title of one of her books, “Shut Up and Sing,” about entertainers who become too involved in politics.
For well over a decade, Ingraham has used the “shut up and [fill in the blank]” phrase in reference to those on the Left who go way out of their lanes.
Ingraham’s recent comment about James was in response to a vulgar rant on his part about President Donald Trump.
James claimed in raw and rude language that the current chief executive doesn’t “give a f*** about the people.”
The Fox News host’s “shut up and dribble” comment then became central in the ongoing debate about exactly how involved athletes should be in politics or the culture.
James has now taken the comment and turned it into the title of an upcoming television show that will air for three episodes on Showtime in October.
The series will offer an “inside look at the changing role of athletes in our fraught cultural and political environment, through the lens of the NBA,” according to a press release from Showtime.
LeBron James will be executive producer of the series — and Ingraham’s criticism of him will reportedly serve as a prologue for the show.
James recently went after President Trump once again in a CNN interview with Don Lemon, in which the athlete said he would refuse any potential meeting with the country’s leader.
He also claimed the president was trying to use politics to “divide” the country.
Trump bit back hard on Twitter. He called Don Lemon “the dumbest man on television” and announced that he preferred basketball legend Michael Jordan to LeBron James.
Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2018
(photo credit, article image: LeBron James, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Keith Allison)
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