Kamala Harris paid LeBron James' entertainment company $50,000 for 'campaign event production,' records show
Records show that on Jan. 28 the former vice president paid James' entertainment company $50,000 for "campaign event production."
James and his longtime business partner, Maverick Carter, founded the company, Springhill Entertainment, in 2020.
Carter and James have been linked since high school. The two played basketball at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, and are also minority owners of the Boston Red Sox and the English soccer club Liverpool.
Records show the campaign had seven such "campaign event production" payments, each to a different recipient, including one to actress Jennifer Garner for $35,000.
The largest payment went to Production Management One, Inc. for $258,993.
The NBA's all-time leading scorer has long been critical of President Donald Trump, and James urged his followers to "vote Kamala Harris" the week before the election.
"What are we even talking about here?? When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!" James posted on X.
When former President Joe Biden decided on Harris as his running mate in 2020, James voiced support.
"Congrats and well deserved Sen. Kamala Harris!! Love to see and support it! Appreciate you JB," he wrote at the time.
The four-time MVP endorsed Hillary Clinton for president during the 2016 election and campaigned for her in Ohio while he was still with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
James previously called Trump a "bum" when Trump rescinded a White House invite to Stephen Curry.
"Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!" he said at the time.
Trump also once said it "wasn't easy" to make James "look smart."
When Trump said he was losing interest in the NBA after players knelt during the national anthem, James said, "I really don't think the basketball community are sad about losing his viewership."
Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
22 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump plays golf in Scotland while protesters take to the streets and decry his visit
EDINBURGH, Scotland — President Trump played golf Saturday at his course on Scotland's coast while protesters around the country took to the streets to decry his visit and accuse United Kingdom leaders of pandering to the unpopular American president. Trump and his son Eric played with the U.S. ambassador to Britain, Warren Stephens, near Turnberry, a historic course that the Trump family's company took over in 2014. Security was tight, and protesters kept at a distance were unseen by the group during Trump's round. He was dressed in black with a white 'USA' cap and was spotted driving a golf cart. The president appeared to play an opening nine holes, stop for lunch, then head out for nine more. By the middle of the afternoon, plainclothes security officials began leaving, suggesting Trump was done for the day. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the cobblestone and tree-lined street in front of the U.S. Consulate about 100 miles away in Edinburgh, Scotland's capital. Speakers told the crowd that Trump was not welcome and criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for striking a recent trade deal to avoid stiff U.S. tariffs on goods imported from the U.K. Protests were planned in other cities as environmental activists, opponents of Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza and pro-Ukraine groups loosely formed a 'Stop Trump Coalition.' Anita Bhadani, an organizer, said the protests were 'kind of like a carnival of resistance.' June Osbourne, 52, a photographer and photo historian from Edinburgh, wore a red cloak and white hood, recalling 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Osbourne held up a picture of Trump with 'Resist' stamped over his face. 'I think there are far too many countries that are feeling the pressure of Trump and that they feel that they have to accept him, and we should not accept him here,' Osbourne said. The dual U.S.-British citizen said the Republican president was 'the worst thing that has happened to the world, the U.S., in decades.' Trump's late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and the president has suggested he feels at home in the country. But the protesters did their best to change that. 'I don't think I could just stand by and not do anything,' said Amy White, 15, of Edinburgh, who attended with her parents. She held a cardboard sign that said, 'We don't negotiate with fascists.' 'So many people here loathe him,' she said. 'We're not divided. We're not divided by religion, or race or political allegiance, we're just here together because we hate him.' Other demonstrators held signs of pictures with Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, as the fervor over files in the late child abuser's case has created a political crisis for the president. In the view of Mark Gorman, 63, of Edinburgh, 'The vast majority of Scots have this sort of feeling about Trump that, even though he has Scottish roots, he's a disgrace.' Gorman, who works in advertising, said he came out 'because I have deep disdain for Donald Trump and everything that he stands for.' A Scottish newspaper, the National, greeted Trump's arrival with a banner headline in its Friday edition that read, 'Convicted U.S. felon to arrive in Scotland.' Saturday's protests were not nearly as large as the throngs that demonstrated across Scotland when Trump played at Turnberry during his first term in 2018. But, as bagpipes played, people chanted, 'Trump out!' and raised dozens of homemade signs with such messages as 'No red carpet for dictators,' 'We don't want you here' and 'Stop Trump. Migrants welcome.' One dog had a sign attached that said 'No treats for tyrants.' Some on the far right took to social media to call for gatherings supporting Trump in places such as Glasgow. Trump also plans to talk trade with Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. But golf is a major focus. The family will also visit another Trump course near Aberdeen in northeastern Scotland, before returning to Washington on Tuesday. The Trumps will cut the ribbon and play a new, second course in that area, which officially opens to the public next month. Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who is also set to meet with Trump during the visit, announced that public money will go to staging the 2025 Nexo Championship, previously known previously as the Scottish Championship, at Trump's first course near Aberdeen next month. 'The Scottish government recognizes the importance and benefits of golf and golf events, including boosting tourism and our economy,' Swinney said. At a protest Saturday in Aberdeen, Scottish Parliament member Maggie Chapman told the crowd of hundreds: 'We stand in solidarity, not only against Trump but against everything he and his politics stand for.' The president has long lobbied for Turnberry to host the British Open, which it has not done since he took over ownership. In a social media post Saturday, Trump quoted the retired golfer Gary Player as saying Turnberry was among the 'Top Five Greatest Golf Courses' he had played in as a professional. The president, in the post, misspelled the city where his golf course is. Weissert writes for the Associated Press.
New York Post
22 minutes ago
- New York Post
This acclaimed novelist is also a master puzzle writer
When it comes to writing books, author Christopher J. Yates has a unique approach. 'My secret sauce for writing novels is I set to myself a puzzle I have to solve,' said Yates, who has published three novels and written for the puzzle pages of various publications — including The Post — for decades. His new novel, 'The Rabbit Club,' is a thriller set in academia. It exists in two time periods:1994, when wide-eyed 18-year-old Ali McCain arrives to study literature at Oxford University — and track down his English rock-star father — and 2019, when an unnamed academic in New York looks back on the events of Ali's formative years. Advertisement 5 Christopher J. Yates writes both novels and puzzles — and he says the process has more in common than you might imagine. Courtesy of Christopher J. Yates 'His voice just came to me, and I wrote like pages and pages of this crazy narrator. I was like, 'Who is this guy? I have no idea.' But I realized I had to solve the puzzle of who he was,' said Yates, a 53-year-old native of Kent, England, who now lives in the Hudson Valley. 'When I worked it out, I was like, 'No way, you can't get away with that. You can't pull it off.' And then I was like, 'What if I did it?'' Yates' earlier DELETE two novels, 2015's 'Black Chalk' and 2018's 'Grist Mill Road,' had puzzles of their own. Advertisement 'Black Chalk,' which is also set at Oxford, sees six students embroiled in a deadly game. The reader knows early on that one of them will die, but not which one. 'Grist Mill Road' takes place in a small New York town in the early 1980s. It starts with a teenage boy tying a young girl to a tree and shooting her with a BB gun, ultimately blinding her. The puzzle, Yates said, was figuring out why he did that. 5 Yates' new novel, 'The Rabbit Club,' is a puzzle of sorts, set at Oxford University. 'It could have been he's a psychopath, but that wasn't interesting to me,' he said. Advertisement Yates wrote about 80% of the book before the boy's motive came to him. 'I was terrified, and I just walked into my kitchen to make some tea, and this overwhelming explosion of information occurred in my head. I had to stop moving. I just stared into the middle distance as all of the answers kind of came to my head,' he recalled. 'I think it's like, people who've done crosswords will often experience. You can stare at a crossword, you can't get the last three answers, so you walk away, you do something else, you have some lunch, you come back, you look at the newspaper — and all of your answers just bang, bang, bang are in your head. I think your subconscious works it out for you.' Yates started writing puzzles — in the traditional sense — at age 22. 5 Yates's first novel, 'Black Chalk,' was also set at Oxford. It sees six students embroiled in a deadly game. The reader knows one of them will die, but not which one. Advertisement After graduating from Oxford, where he studied law, in 1993, he couldn't land a big job and took a six-week gig writing a database of crossword clues. 'That led to becoming a puzzle magazine editor and then editor of more important puzzle magazines,' he said. In his early 20s, he even represented the United Kingdom at the World Puzzle Championship in Holland. 'That was the most surreal experience of my life,' he said. 'Brilliant puzzle people aren't necessary completely normal.' 5 'Grist Mill Road' is Yates' second novel. It starts with a teenage boy tying a young girl to a tree and shooting her with a BB gun, ultimately blinding her. The puzzle, Yates said, was figuring out why he did that. He placed near the top in one of the rare word puzzles at the event, but most of the games involved math due to language differences. Overall, he was nearly last. Yates currently creates the weekly Word Force game for The Post. Last year, he published, with co-writer Bruce Pitchers, his first puzzle book, '5 Minute Murder: 100 addictive crime mystery puzzles for logical sleuths.' His fondness and aptitude for puzzles date back to childhood and visits to his paternal grandparents in London. Advertisement 5 Last year, Yates co-authored his first puzzle book, '5 Minute Murder.' 'They were literally Victorians and therefore never spoke to me and my sister,' he said. 'They would just give us puzzle magazines and leave us in a room and occasionally take us for a walk to the park and serve us dinner.' Yates, who begins most days playing the New York Times' 'Spelling Bee' game, is unsure if he has a natural knack for puzzles or just developed a skill or them while Grandpa smoked his pipe in the next room. 'It's hard to know, isn't it? Chicken or egg situation,' he said. 'But I do think my strongest suit in life is words.'
The Hill
22 minutes ago
- The Hill
David Letterman on ‘gutless' cancellation of Colbert's show: ‘Pure cowardice'
Comedian David Letterman on Friday joined the chorus of late-night hosts to bash CBS News after it announced it would sunset 'The Late Show' after more than three decades on air, while praising host Stephen Colbert as a 'martyr.' Letterman — the show's first host — alluded to the recent $16 million settlement between CBS's parent company Paramount Global and the Trump administration, and its expected merger with entertainment giant Skydance, when he called the decision to nix the program 'gutless.' 'I think one day, if not today, the people at CBS who have manipulated and handled this are going to be embarrassed because this is gutless,' he said during a recorded chat with his former 'Late Show' producers Barbara Gaines and Mary Barclay. 'I only wish this could happen to me. This would have been so great for me.' Paramount called the move 'purely a financial decision' and not related to the show's performance or content. Letterman, like other press advocates and some Democrats, did not seem satisfied with that answer. Instead, the 'Late Show' veteran cast the blame on who he called the 'Oracle twins,' referring to billionaire Larry Ellison and his son David Ellison, who is set to lead the 'New Paramount' after the Federal Communications Commission gave the greenlight for Skydance to acquire the company. The merger is expected to be completed by Aug. 7. 'There's no fairness to these goons,' Letterman said, adding 'These guys are bottom feeders. That's exactly what this is.' 'Of course, they know that broadcast television is withering, so now they want, just want to make sure on top of buying something that doesn't have the same value as it had 30 years ago. They don't want to be hassled by the United States government,' he continued. 'So, they want CBS to take care of all of that mess.' The comedian also blasted CBS's decision to settle with Trump after he sued '60 Minutes' over an interview with former Vice President Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign as 'pure cowardice.' Top names in late-night television — such as Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers — have defended Colbert, who has openly raised concerns over Paramount's recent decisions. Letterman was no different. 'Now, for Stephen, I love this. He's a martyr. Good for him, right?' he told his former producers. 'Now we've all got to kiss Stephen Colbert's ring now,' he quipped later. 'And if you listen carefully, you can hear them unfolding chairs at the Hall of Fame for his induction, right?' Colbert, who took the reins from Letterman in 2015, has gone back-and-forth with Trump in recent days. 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,' the president wrote in a post on Truth Social earlier this week after the company revealed it would end the show in May 2026. The comedian replied, 'How dare you, sir. Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism: 'Go f‑‑‑ yourself.''
