Your problem is that while the generic parameter of TreeNode is Comparable, the class itself is not.
Change this:
public static class TreeNode<E extends Comparable<E>> {
To this:
public static class TreeNode<E extends Comparable<E>> implements Comparable<TreeNode<E>> {
Or if you don’t require the generic type to also be Comparable:
public static class TreeNode<E> implements Comparable<TreeNode<E>> {
Once you make this change, you won’t need the cast.
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solved TreeNode cannot be cast to java.lang.Comparable?