Spurs coach Popovic says Trump is “a soulless coward” after president’s claims of fallen soldiers

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is often sour toward the media.

Whether it’s his dry sense of humor or the stupidity of interviewing a coach in between quarters, Popovich appears to want nothing to do with it.

But, when it comes to President Donald Trump, the hall of fame coach is as outspoken as ever.

Monday, Trump said, about contacting the families of slain soldiers, that President Barack “Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls — a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.”

Later in the press conference, Trump was somewhat called out on it, when a reporter asked the president, “Earlier you said that President Obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. How can you make that claim?”

Trump cuts off the reporter and said, “I don’t know if he did. I was told that he didn’t often. … President Obama, I think did sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told.”

The assumptions by Trump apparently set off Popovich, who told The Nation:

“I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this president had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous Presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families are so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.”

And, after a pause, Popovich continued:

“This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner—and to lie about how previous presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers—is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House, unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office, and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this president should be ashamed, because they know better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.”