Gregg Popovich Goes Off on Donald Trump: "My Big Fear Is: We Are Rome"

Gregg Popovich has always possessed the tone and tenor of a great leader. He knows when it's time to execute a high-post iso, he knows when to cut an interview short, and he knows how to run a team with sharp insight and deft execution. So it shouldn't be surprising that in the face of a monumental shift in American politics, he's got something fitting to say, and that it is going to wreck you.

In the wake of Donald Trump's election as president of the United States, Popvich went on San Antonio Express News' Spurs Nation Podcast, and talked about his feelings on the new change in power, and how it reflects upon the society that ushered it in. Let's just say this: he's not too keen on our new president elect.

Here's the full transcript, because it's worth a full listen and read-along:

I've spoken on this before and I probably will again. But right now I'm just trying to formulate thoughts. It's still early and I'm still sick to my stomach—not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic. And I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That's the scariest part of the whole thing to me.

It's got nothing to do with the environment and Obamacare and all the other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all those values that we would hold our kids accountable for. They'd be grounded for years if they acted and said the things that have been said in that campaign by Donald Trump. I look at the evangelicals and I wonder, 'Those values don't mean anything to them?'

All those values to me are more important than anybody's skill in business or anything else because it tells who we are and how we want to live and what kind of people we are. That's why I have great respect for people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, John Kasich, who I disagree with on a lot of political things, but they had enough fiber and respect for humanity and tolerance for all groups to say what they said about the man. And that's what worries me.

You know, I get it, of course we want him to be successful. We're all gonna say that. Everybody wants him to be successful. It's our country. We don't want it to go down the drain. Any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but that does not take away the fact that he used that fear-mongering and all the comments from day one. The race baiting with trying to make Barack Obama, our first black president, illegitimate. So it leaves me wondering where I've been living and with whom I'm living.

The fact that people can just gloss that over and start talking about the transition team, and we're all gonna be Kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about about any of those things. Now we see that he's already backing off on immigration and Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake? Which makes you feel it's even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up to get elected.

What gets lost in the process are African-Americans and hispanics and women and the gay population, not to mention the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person. I mean, come on. That's what a seventh-grade, eighth-grade bully does, and he was elected president of the United States. We would've scolded our kids, we would've had discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things, and he is in charge of our country. That's disgusting.

(Reporter talks for a second)

I'm not done.

One could go on and on. We didn't make this stuff up. He's angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. It's ironic to me. It just makes no sense. So that's my real fear and that's what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that's necessary to understand other group situations.

I'm a rich white guy, and I'm sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can't imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African-American, an hispanic, a handicapped person, how disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it's just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that.

And so, my final conclusion is—my big fear is—we are Rome.

There's not much else to say other than there's a reason why Pop is the greatest.