ENES KANTER FREEDOM: FROM CRITIC TO TRUMP ALLY

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Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom has publicly declared his support for Donald Trump, marking a surprising shift in stance just 18 months after criticizing Trump ally Elon Musk for allegedly complying with censorship requests from the Turkish government.  

Kan­ter Free­dom, a long-time crit­ic of Turkey’s pres­i­dent, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—whom he has called the “Hitler of our century”—posted a video on X of him­self meet­ing Trump at a recent gala. In the clip, the two shake hands, with Trump call­ing the Turk­ish-born ath­lete “fan­tas­tic” and thank­ing him for his sup­port.  

The bas­ket­ball play­er, who became a U.S. cit­i­zen in 2021 and added “Free­dom” to his name, wrote, “Had an amaz­ing meet­ing with the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. I look for­ward to work­ing with you.”  

Kan­ter Freedom’s endorse­ment of Trump has sparked spec­u­la­tion about a poten­tial role in the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion, although no details have been con­firmed.  

His polit­i­cal jour­ney has been event­ful. A vocal oppo­nent of author­i­tar­i­an regimes, Kan­ter Free­dom has been crit­i­cal of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, accus­ing him of being too lenient on dic­ta­tor­ships. He appeared at the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion last sum­mer, align­ing him­self with con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­tics.  

The for­mer NBA star has also faced per­son­al con­se­quences for his activism. Turkey revoked his pass­port, impris­oned his father on ter­ror­ism charges for sev­en years, and placed a $500,000 boun­ty on his head.  

Kan­ter Freedom’s crit­i­cism of Musk came after he was tem­porar­i­ly banned from X last year, a move he claimed was influ­enced by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment ahead of elec­tions. He accused Musk of pri­or­i­tiz­ing busi­ness inter­ests over prin­ci­ples, stat­ing, “Elon thinks like a busi­ness­man. He’s not going to ban the whole app in Turkey. They’re bluff­ing.”  

In addi­tion to his cri­tiques of Musk and Erdoğan, Kan­ter Free­dom has made head­lines for his out­spo­ken views on Chi­na, tar­get­ing the NBA’s busi­ness ties with the coun­try. He has accused bas­ket­ball leg­ends Michael Jor­dan and LeBron James of over­look­ing human rights abus­es in pur­suit of prof­its.  

While his play­ing career has stalled, Kan­ter Free­dom remains a polar­iz­ing fig­ure, using his plat­form to spot­light polit­i­cal and human rights issues.