Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is not a fan of at least one Democrat-controlled city because of how it has dealt with its homeless population.
Barkley, part of TNT's announcing team for an alternate broadcast of Sunday's NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis, said "you can't even walk around" San Francisco due to "homeless crooks."
During the broadcast, Barkley was speaking with Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and ex-Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller about the game's location.
"Hey, Reggie we love you, let's not have another All-Star [game] in Indiana," Green told Miller. "Let's let this be the last one, my friend."
Barkley chimed in and referenced the city in which Green's team plays.
"Hey, Reggie," Barkley said. "If you had a chance of being cold, or being around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco, which would you take? You can't even walk around down there."
When Green responded, "Yes, you can walk around," Barkley said: "Yeah, with a bulletproof vest."
Next year's NBA All-Star game is scheduled to take place at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
Barkley has blasted the Golden Gate City before.
During Game 4 of the 2022 Western Conference Finals in Texas between the Warriors and Dallas Mavericks, Barkley commented when a rare rain delay occurred due to a roof leak at the American Airlines Center.
"The bad thing about all this rain, it's not raining in San Francisco to clean up those dirty-ass streets they got there," Barkley said during the broadcast at the time. "San Francisco, it's a great city, but all that dirtiness and homelessness, y'all gotta clean that off the streets."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is urging voters to approve a ballot initiative that he said is needed to tackle the state's homelessness crisis, a change social providers say would threaten programs that keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Voters approved legislation that in 2004 imposed a tax on millionaires to finance mental health services, generating $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue each year that has mostly gone to counties to fund mental health programs as they see fit under broad guidelines.
Newsom wants to give the state more control over how that money is spent. Proposition 1, before voters on the March 5 ballot, would require counties to spend 60% of those funds on housing and programs for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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