MILWAUKEE—Former National Basketball Association star Enes Kanter Freedom spoke with former President Donald Trump’s family after a 20-year-old man attempted to assassinate the former president.
“About the photo, first of all, that’s probably one of the most iconic photos I’ve ever seen in my life,” Freedom, a former basketball and wrestling pro, told The Daily Signal in an interview Thursday at the Republican National Convention. Several iconic photos emerged from the assassination attempt, including one in which Trump appears, with blood on his face, raising his fist in front of an American flag.
Freedom said he met with Trump’s family in the days after Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire at a Trump rally, wounding the former president and fatally shooting Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former local fire chief who reportedly dove on family members to protect them.
After sustaining the wound, Trump stood up, raised his fist in the air, and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before Secret Service escorted him offstage.
“I actually had a meeting with his family, I just said, ‘God saved his life, literally,'” Freedom recalled. “I prayed for him, I prayed for his family, and we’ve got to do whatever we can to keep him safe because this is America, man, this is unacceptable.”
Freedom, who was born to Turkish parents in Switzerland and who studied in Turkey for years before coming to America legally and becoming a U.S. citizen, warned that America has become “pretty much a laughingstock” under President Joe Biden. He highlighted the border and illegal immigration as key issues.
“Is it too much to ask that we need to know who we’re letting in our country? We want to know,” Freedom said. He warned that some of the illegal immigrants might be supporters of the Chinese Communist Party or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “I don’t know if they’re CCP supporters, if they are ISIS supporters, if they are whatever supporters. We want to know who’s coming into our country.”
The Daily Signal asked Freedom whether he considers it an insult for illegal immigrants to come into this country and receive benefits while he went through the legal process.
“Yes, it kind of is” an insult, he said. “There’s a process man, you get a green card, you’ve got to wait five years, then you’ve got to take the citizenship [test], and then you become a citizen. I literally waited almost 10 years to have my citizenship.”
Freedom condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “the Hitler of our country,” and the government targeted him and his father in apparent reprisal. The Turkish government reportedly put a $26,000 bounty (roughly 500,000 Turkish lira) on his head and added his name to the country’s terrorist list in January 2023.
In response, Freedom said, “The only thing I terrorize is the basketball rim.”
“Turkey could have been a bridge of Islam and the West but just because of Erdogan’s policies, it’s impossible,” Freedom told The Daily Signal.
Freedom, who has also condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s oppression and supported Israel, said that the “one strong message” he was looking for at the RNC is “unity.”
“We only have one America, I don’t care what color you are, what religion or what ethnicity or your background,” he said. “We’ve only got one country to live in. We’ve got to make this country better together.”
Freedom also said that Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, make a perfect match.
“I believe Trump and JD Vance is like peanut butter and jelly,” he said. “They go perfect together, the best combination.”
