Panelists on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” voiced disgust Monday over Donald Trump’s suggestion that his criminal indictments are increasing his appeal to Black people.
On Friday, at a gala for the Black Conservative Federation, the former president railed against his four criminal indictments, adding, “A lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they’ve been hurt so badly and discriminated against.”
Rev. Al Sharpton, an MSNBC analyst and longtime civil rights activist, called Trump’s comments the “epitome of an insult.”
Sharpton said, “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 right to vote.”
Sharpton noted that prosecutors leading two of the criminal cases against Trump are Black and that “Trump himself has been part of these kinds of unfair prosecutions of Blacks,” pointing to the 1989 attack ads he took out calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty amid the arrests of the now-exonerated Central Park Five.
“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?” Sharpton asked.
Trump has also targeted Black prosecutors leading cases against him with racially-charged abuse, co-host Joe Scarborough pointed out.
Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the morning show, said Trump had first likened himself to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny last week and now the Black community.
“These comparisons are sick and grotesque,” she said.
Jonathan Lemire, Politico’s White House bureau chief, also described another “grossly offensive” assertion from the Trump camp. He said a Trump advisor had told him that the former president’s new sneaker line would appeal to Black voters.
Trump has a long history of both overt and coded racism, including when he accused Black prosecutors of being racist against him, suggested immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and told four congresswomen of color to “go back” to the countries they came from.
Watch below on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”