WNBA player DiJonai Carrington invited a flurry of backlash for wearing a shirt that said “The F— Donald Trump Tour,” and conservative influencer Riley Gaines was quick to jump in.
Carrington showed off the shirt Friday, while walking into Wayfair Arena in Miami, Florida. Carrington is most known for her interactions with women’s basketball phenom Caitlin Clark during Clark’s rookie WNBA season in 2024.
Carrington infamously gave Clark a black eye by poking her with her fingernails during a game between Clark’s Indiana Fever and Carrington’s Connecticut Sun in the first round of the playoffs in September. Carrington laughed with Fever teammate Marina Mabrey after the incident.
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Gaines made light of this in her first critique of Carrington Saturday.
“So, you’re telling me the same girl who deliberately gouged Caitlin Clark in the eye then laughed about it also wore a hoodie that said, “The F— Donald Trump Tour”?! I’m shocked,” Gaines wrote in a post on X.
Carrington has said she didn’t intentionally poke Clark in the eye and that she wasn’t laughing about the incident. But Gaines felt no reservations about implying Carrington’s poke at Clark was intentional and that she laughed about it afterward.
Gaines followed up with another critique of the Sun player and even brought LeBron James into the conversation.
“What has Donald Trump done to make your life worse? Keep LeBron off the court,” Gaines wrote on X in response to a photo of Carrington wearing the shirt.
Carrington provoked Clark fans prior to the eye-poking incident with multiple statements berating Clark and her fan base.
During a game in June, Carrington fouled Clark after Clark received an inbound pass from teammate Kristy Wallace. Clark caught the pass and started toward the basket. Carrington was late getting to Clark due to a screen by Aliyah Boston, and she bumped into Clark.
Caitlin Clark, right, of the Indiana Fever, fouls DiJonai Carrington (21) of the Connecticut Sun during the first half at the Mohegan Sun Arena June 10, 2024, in Uncasville, Conn. (Brian Fluharty/Getty Images)
Later that month, Carrington posted on X, saying Clark should do more to speak out about people using her name for “racism” and other forms of prejudice. She also called the Fever fans the “nastiest” in the league.
Carrington even made light of the controversy over Clark’s black eye in an Instagram Live video in October. In the video, Carrington and her girlfriend, NaLyssa Smith, who plays on the Indiana Fever with Clark, were in their kitchen when Smith poked Carrington in the eye.
“Ow, you poked me in the eye,” Carrington said. Smith apologized, and the two laughed.
“Did you do it on purpose?” Carrington asked.
Carrington isn’t the first target of Gaines’ wrath when it comes to conversations about Clark’s presence in the WNBA either.
After Clark made a comment about benefiting from White privilege in the WNBA during her interview for Time magazine Athlete of The Year, Gaines got into a heated back-and-forth with journalist Jemele Hill.
After Gaines posted on X criticizing Clark for making the comments, Hill started the debate and even ended up making it personal.
“You holler all the time about supporting and ‘protecting’ women, and yet the moment that Caitlin Clark expresses appreciation and respect for the Black women in the WNBA (many of whom she grew up watching and idolizing), suddenly you’re acting like a disappointed parent,” Hill wrote.
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Riley Gaines is sworn in during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services hearing on Capitol Hill Dec. 5, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Gaines quickly clapped back, responding to Hill’s post by mocking the idea of “White privilege” in the WNBA.
“‘White privilege’ in the WNBA is literally hilarious. Maybe you’re like Sunny Hostin & think CC also has tall privilege, pretty privilege, and straight privilege,” Gaines wrote. “Theres lots of Black players in the WNBA I love [and] respect too, but I don’t admire them because they’re Black. I admire them for their game. That’s the difference.”
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Gaines then doubled down by sharing Hill’s initial post with a screenshot of comments the journalist made in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in May. In that article, Hill insisted it was “naive” to say Clark’s race and sexuality as a straight woman did not play into her popularity in the WNBA, where the majority of players are Black and many are lesbian.
“Being a long-standing professional race baiter must be SO exhausting,” Gaines told Hill in response.
After Gaines’ comment about Hill being a professional race baiter, Hill responded with a message mocking the former swimmer for an incident when she tied with trans athlete Lia Thomas at the 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships.
“Girl, you need to thank Lia Thomas every day of your life for helping you get famous, otherwise you would have been just a decent college swimmer that no one knew. You wrote the book on grifting — not me,” Hill wrote.
Former President Donald Trump is joined onstage by Riley Gaines at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, Aug. 6, 2022. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Gaines responded by saying, “How deeply regressive [and] utterly misogynistic for Jemele Hill to tell me to thank a man for the platform I have. Thank him for what? Violating us in the locker room? Stealing a national title from a deserving woman? Indirectly stripping us of our 1A rights? Just say you hate women,” Gaines wrote in her response.
That was the last message in the exchange.
Gaines has also picked online fights with other liberal figures, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban.
Each of Gaines’ spats with the liberal figures has been met with roaring engagement from her followers.
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Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.
