ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Team USA coach Steve Kerr and star Stephen Curry called the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump “sad” and a “demoralizing day for our country” as the two decried political divisiveness and gun violence back home while they’re on the other side of the world.
“Just a terrible, sad spectacle,” said Kerr, whose American Olympic basketball team woke up Sunday in the Middle East to the news that Trump was rushed to a hospital, the gunman and a spectator were dead, and two others critically wounded Saturday from a shooting at a campaign rally in which the former president was the target. Trump was treated and declared “fine” by his campaign.
“It’s yet another example of not only our political division, but also gun culture,” Kerr continued. “A 20-year-old with an AR-15 trying to shoot the former president? It’s hard to process everything and it’s scary to think about where this goes because of the issues that already exist in the country. So this is a terrible day.
“You imagine (the victims’) family and friends today and what they’re feeling, and thank God Trump wasn’t (critically wounded),” Kerr said.
Kerr has long been outspoken against gun violence. His father, Malcolm, was killed by gunmen in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1984.
The American team of 12 NBA stars and famous coaching staff is spending the week in Abu Dhabi, training for the Paris Olympics that begin later this month.
“It’s obviously a very sad, just, time in general,” Curry said. “All the conversations around the election and the state of politics in our country, and then you have a situation like this, which just invokes a lot of emotions around things that we need to correct as a people,” he said, citing “gun control, first and foremost.”
Curry and Kerr both described the added weight of the tragedy in Pennsylvania at a time when they and the rest of Team USA are overseas, representing the United States.
“For us, we’re going to use it as a unifying moment to again use this platform and this opportunity to represent ourselves, our upbringings, our families, our country to the best that we can, and hopefully that channels the right energy back home when they’re watching us play,” said Curry, who also echoed Kerr’s sentiments about gun control and political divisiveness back home.
“I know that it’s bigger than that, what we’re dealing with.”
Kerr said Team USA coaches and staff have talked to the players about “how important it is to show the best version of us as human beings to represent our country in a respectful manner,” and the tragedy Saturday “makes you want to do that even more so, because this is really shameful for us to sit here and think about what happened and what’s going on in our country.”
“Obviously what we’re doing is very trivial, just playing basketball, but we want to put our best selves out there to try to give people a glimpse of what our country can be about,” Kerr said. “And then you hear something like this and it’s just so demoralizing and obviously so sad.”
So far since practice first started, Team USA has received visits from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. On Sunday, the American team received U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Martina A. Strong, and several marines stationed at the embassy, at practice on the campus of New York University in Abu Dhabi.
“You want positivity and hope — it sounds cheesy, but it’s real,” Curry said. “That’s when our country’s at its best and (the shooting) just adds another blemish to what’s going on.”
(Photo of Steve Kerr at Sunday’s Team USA practice in Abu Dhabi: Joe Murphy / NBAE via Getty Images)
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