Writer nails Trump for attack on UCLA dad: ‘He’s trying to pick fight with black person he considers uppity’

Appearing on MSNBC, a Los Angeles Times writer said he was not surprised that President Donald Trump attacked the father of a UCLA basketball player because the dad is black and Trump likely considers him "uppity."

Sunday afternoon, Trump took to Twitter to complain that LaVar Ball failed to thank him for reportedly saving his son, LiAngelo, from being jailed after he was accused of shoplifting in China.

On Twitter, Trump ranted, “Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!”

Asked by host Richard Lieu about Trump's tweet -- after avoiding tweeting about embattled Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore -- the LA Times correspondent Jamil Smith laughed and said it was par for the course for Trump.

"I think what you see here another example of Donald Trump trying to pick a fight with a prominent black person who he considers uppity," Smith explained. "I think that when you have president tweeting out that a person did not display sufficient fealty or loyalty to him in recompense for an action a president should be doing any way, I think we have a really dangerous precedent being set here."

"This is stuff you hear from third world dictators and not from presidents of the United States," he continued. "When you talk about these three young when -- who actually did make a mistake and committed this minor crime -- and the idea that the president would need to be thanked enough in order to justify the actions taken to make sure that their freedom is secured, that should be called out by every single person from both side of the aisle as reprehensible and beneath the dignity of the office."

You can watch the video below via MSNBC: