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<p>PALM BEACH, Fla. &#8212; President Donald Trump started off his first day of Thanksgiving vacation Wednesday by resuming his taunts of the father of a UCLA basketball player detained for shoplifting in China, calling him an &#8220;ungrateful fool.&#8221;</p><p>In a series of tweets fired off before dawn, the president complained yet again that LaVar Ball, father of LiAngelo Ball, hasn&#8217;t given him credit for the release of his son and two other UCLA basketball players after they were accused of shoplifting while in China for a basketball game.</p><p>Tweeting from his Florida vacation home, Trump said: &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t the White House, it wasn&#8217;t the State Department, it wasn&#8217;t father LaVar&#8217;s so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence - IT WAS ME.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man&#8217;s version of Don King, but without the hair,&#8221; he said, referencing the flamboyant boxing promoter whom Trump once saluted as &#8220;a phenomenal person&#8221; despite a conviction for manslaughter.</p><p>Trump also warned that Ball &#8220;could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you&#8221; had it not been for his intervention.</p><p>&#8220;But remember LaVar, shoplifting is NOT a little thing. It&#8217;s a really big deal, especially in China,&#8221; he wrote.</p><p>The president also retweeted a post from Joey Mannarino, a U.S.-born radio host living in London, who echoed the statement: &#8220;The ungratefulness is something I&#8217;ve never seen before. If you get someone&#8217;s son out of prison, he should be grateful to you. Period. I don&#8217;t care. If Hillary got my kid out of prison, as much as I hate the woman, I&#8217;d thank her corrupt ass.&#8221;</p><p>LiAngelo Ball and two UCLA teammates were released after a brief detention in China while Trump was visiting the country. Trump has taken credit for the release, saying he discussed the situation with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.</p><p>Trump had previously said he should have left all three players in jail because LaVar Ball hadn&#8217;t thanked him publicly for his intervention.</p><p>LaVar Ball, whose eldest son, Lonzo, plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, has repeatedly minimized Trump&#8217;s involvement in winning the players&#8217; release, telling CNN earlier this week: &#8220;If I feel nobody did anything, I don&#8217;t have to go around saying thank you to everybody.&#8221; All three players have been suspended from the team.</p><p>Trump is spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he stressed he&#8217;ll be &#8220;having meetings and working the phones&#8221; and not just vacationing.</p><p>Trump also spoke out against the idea of keeping NFL players in the locker room during the playing of the national anthem as a response to some players refusing to stand to protest racial inequality and police brutality.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s almost as bad as kneeling! When will the highly paid Commissioner finally get tough and smart?&#8221; Trump wrote. &#8220;This issue is killing your league!&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">LaVar Ball, right, questioned the extent of President Donald Trump&#8217;s involvement in securing his son&#8217;s release from the custody of Chinese authorities during a combative 20-minute CNN interview on Monday. Trump called Ball an &#8220;ungrateful fool&#8221; in a serious of tweets on Wednesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/web1_LaVar-Ball-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>LaVar Ball, right, questioned the extent of President Donald Trump&#8217;s involvement in securing his son&#8217;s release from the custody of Chinese authorities during a combative 20-minute CNN interview on Monday. Trump called Ball an &#8220;ungrateful fool&#8221; in a serious of tweets on Wednesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Jae C. Hong | AP file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jill Colvin</p><p>Associated Press</p></bylineMeta></div>

Donald Trump calls LaVar Ball an ‘ungrateful fool’