The Rev. Al Sharpton issued a scathing clapback against President Donald Trump after he hurled racist abuse and insults at the civil rights icon in an early morning Twitter rant Monday.
Sharpton, now a political analyst for MSNBC, addressed Trump’s attack in a single tweet, writing: “Trump says I’m a troublemaker & con man. I do make trouble for bigots. If he really thought I was a con man, he’d want me in his cabinet.”
Taking to his keyboard, the president fired off a series of tweets on Monday ripping Sharpton as a “con man” and “troublemaker,” despite their decades-long friendship.
“I have known Al for 25 years,” Trump wrote. “Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He ‘loved Trump!!’ He would ask me for favors often. Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have intimidated Comcast/NBC. Hates Whites & Cops!”
In a follow up tweet, he claimed the reverend often begged him to attend his events, which he “seldom, but sometimes did,” and once visited Trump Tower during the presidential campaign “to apologize for the way he was talking about me.”
“Just a conman at work!” the president added.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the National Action Network founder and broadcaster acknowledged his long-standing relationship with Trump, but said it was the then president-elect who begged for his approval shortly after winning the White House in 2016.
“He would support us, and come to us even after I would challenge him about the Central Park [Five] and attacking him on the [Obama] birther [conspiracy],” Sharpton recalled. “But make this note — on December 1, 2016, three weeks after the election, he called me after seeing me on this show, ‘Morning Joe,’ and asked me to come and meet with him.”
“He was president-elect,” the reverend said, “and he wanted me to come meet with him at Mar-A-Lago. And I said, ‘I’ll only meet with you if I can bring other leaders of national civil rights organizations. [Trump said], ‘No, Al, I just know you, let’s meet and let’s talk.’ “
Trump faces renewed backlash after, for the second time in just two weeks, he’s launched racist attacks against congressional Democrats of color — this time taking aim at Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings and his majority-black district in Baltimore.
In more than a dozen tweets over the weekend, the president excoriated Cummings’ district as a “rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
“If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place,” Trump said of the 13-time elected congressman, adding: “The facts speak far louder than words … Elijah Cummings has failed badly.”
Trump’s latest attacks against Sharpton and Cummings, who he dubbed a “racist” and criticized for failing to “thank” him for helping the Black community, comes on the heels of a similar rant where the president told four congresswomen of color to “go back” to the countries from which they came.
Watch more in the video below.
