Rev. Al Sharpton slammed Donald Trump on Monday’s “Morning Joe” for claiming Black voters have embraced his criminal behavior, including his indictments on charges of election racketeering along with the mug shot he took following his arrest.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Sharpton addressed the comments Trump made while speaking to Black conservatives in South Carolina ahead of the state’s Republican primary. He explained that Trump is merely exploiting the stereotype that Black people, culturally, are habitual lawbreakers while highlighting the historical efforts Black people made to secure civil rights, which often led to unjust arrests
“Well, first of all, let’s be clear, Donald Trump is using the stereotype of Blacks being criminals and therefore we would gravitate towards somebody in a mug shot. He’s in a mug shot for trying to interfere with an election. Blacks were arrested to get the rights to vote. That’s what the marches were about,” Sharpton said, adding Trump’s remarks were completely disrespectful.
“It is the epitome of an insult when you think of the fact that it is a Black man that is prosecuting him in Manhattan — Alvin Bragg — a Black woman in Georgia, a Black woman, the New York State attorney General — Letitia James,” the political activist continued. “So he’s saying Black people would relate to someone indicted for trying to undermine the elections by Blacks. But we would go with him rather than them?”
Sharpton then broke down Trump’s history of demonizing Black people, specifically calling for the murder of the “The Exonerated Five” (previously known as “The Central Park Five,” who were wrongly accused of sexually assaulting a white female jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989.
“The other part of this that is so amazing is Donald Trump himself has been part of these kinds of unfair prosecutions of Blacks,” Sharpton explained. “It was him that took out ads in newspapers, calling for the death penalty of five young Black and brown boys of raping a white woman in Central Park, who went to jail falsely,” Sharpton said. “It was later proven they didn’t do it because of DNA. Donald Trump said, ‘No, punish them anyway.’ So, all of a sudden I’ve been in this movement for 40, 50 years, I’ve never seen him stand up for Blacks that were treated wrong by the criminal justice system, but now he’s a symbol of being persecuted. He’s being persecuted by Black prosecutors. A Black woman judge in the federal court in Washington, D.C. and the shameless Blacks that are standing there applauding him, need to check the facts.”
Trump spoke to a crowd at the Black Conservative Federation on Saturday, where he made several claims that Black people adore him because they feel he’s been “discriminated against.”
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing. They were doing it because it’s election interference, and then I got indicted a second time, and a third time and a fourth time,” Trump said. “And a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against.”
Trump, who faces 91 charges as part of his indictments, continued: “The mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. It’s incredible. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know they do shirts.”
Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.
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