Editor's note: Explicit language below.
On Monday’s Morning Joe, as part of their nearly three-hour long marathon of anti-Trump hate in reaction to the President’s alleged comments describing Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries,” co-host Joe Scarborough brought on just the right person to attack Trump as a race-baiter–the Reverend Al Sharpton himself. Apparently unaware of the intense irony, Scarborough presented Sharpton as a legitimate voice of moral authority on questions of racism and both MSNBC pundits went on at length about how Trump’s true political “agenda is to race-bait and bring [America] backwards” “100 years.”
After introducing Sharpton onto the show, the Politics Nation host initially attacked Trump for his disparaging comments about African countries by claiming that the President’s remarks would imperil U.S. national security and help ISIS and Al-Qaeda operations on the continent:
No doubt about it. And when you look at the fact, Joe, that not only did he say the words that has been confirmed by others, the policy. When y-, when you look at the fact that he backs it up by saying: Why aren’t we bringing more people in from Norway? Well, look at the trade we do with Norway and look at the trade we do with sub-Sahara Africa. It's not even in America's interest to insult African countries, aside from the fact that it's blatantly racist. If you look at the fact that the United States has intelligence operations all over Africa because they need to combat ISIS and Al Qaeda, do you imagine what the ISIS operatives are doing today, going around telling people: Don't cooperate with American intelligence against us, they think you all live in s-houses or s-holes. I mean, this is against Americans’ interests whether you're Republican or Democrat. So what this president has done is not only racist, it is a national security risk. And on King Day, for him to sit up and stand up and sign a proclamation when he has over and over and over again demonstrated racism is, is really something that this country ought to really say we're not going to tolerate.
Sharpton did not explain why people who are already sympathetic enough with jihadis who engage in mass-murder, human-trafficking, and sex slavery to listen to them in the first place are somehow going to turn against America and cooperate with terrorists now that Trump has called their countries “shitholes.” One suspects that these people were probably on the anti-America, pro-ISIS train before last Friday.
Without bothering to get any clarification on Sharpton’s ridiculous assertions about national security, Scarborough moved on to hammer home the point that Trump is a racist. Joe pointed to NBC News reporting that Trump was asking friends about how people would react to his comments as proof that the statements were calculated to produce outrage before adding that “Donald Trump appears, does he not, uh, determined to drag us back, not 30 years ago, but 100 years ago?”
Sharpton agreed that Trump did indeed seem “very determined” to do so “with his policies [...] and his language.” After going on at length reminiscing about his role in seeing Martin Luther King Day made into a national holiday, which saw Sharpton praising Ronald Reagan for accepting the bill that did so, Al launched into his impressively hypocritical tirade lambasting Trump for race-baiting:
Donald Trump doesn't even have a black agenda. He has no urban agenda. He has no agenda for civil rights. His agenda is to race-bait and bring us backwards. And Americans today on Martin Luther King's birthday -- I'm in Washington with his son going to Harlem. We're doing things all day. We need to say we can have a debate between conservatives and progressives over how to deal with civil rights, but neither of us should tolerate people that just race-bait with no plan and just want to play us against each other, which is personified by this president.
Many more people would probably argue that Sharpton himself is “personified” by race-baiting, given his long history of incendiary rhetoric targeting Jews, whites, and cops, the Tawana Brawley rape conspiracy probably being the most infamous example of such.
Instead of addressing the glaring irony of Sharpton’s attacks on the President, Scarborough pushed the segment forward by asking Washington Post columnist David Ignatius to discuss Sharpton’s claim about Trump harming America’s national security.
See a partial transcript of the segment below:
6:42 AM EST
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let's bring in right now from Capitol Hill the host of MSNBC’s Politics Nation and the President of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Uh, Al, it's kind of hard to listen to Donald Trump, uh, talk about Martin Luther King's legacy the same day that, as Erick Erickson said, he was calling around bragging about making racist comments about, uh, people coming from countries that he didn't like.
AL SHARPTON: No doubt about it. And when you look at the fact, Joe, that not only did he say the words that has been confirmed by others, the policy. When y-, when you look at the fact that he backs it up by saying: Why aren’t we bringing more people in from Norway? Well, look at the trade we do with Norway and look at the trade we do with sub-Sahara Africa. It's not even in America's interest to insult African countries, aside from the fact that it's blatantly racist. If you look at the fact that the United States has intelligence operations all over Africa because they need to combat ISIS and Al Qaeda, do you imagine what the ISIS operatives are doing today, going around telling people: Don't cooperate with American intelligence against us, they think you all live in s-houses or s-holes. I mean, this is against Americans’ interests whether you're Republican or Democrat. So what this president has done is not only racist, it is a national security risk. And on King Day, for him to sit up and stand up and sign a proclamation when he has over and over and over again demonstrated racism is, is really something that this country ought to really say we're not going to tolerate.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, and, and what he said on Friday was calculated, NBC News reporting that he called around the night before and was asking people what they thought about him possibly using language like that the next day. He goes in. He, he's then lectured by Lindsey Graham and, and called out by Dick Durbin. And then, again, according to Erick Erickson, that afternoon, he's calling people around bragging about the language that he's using. This is a calculated, political -- I mean, we, we have, we have come so far in so many ways, but Donald Trump appears, does he not, uh, determined to drag us back, not 30 years ago, but 100 years ago?
SHARPTON: No, he seems very determined. And he, he's determined with his policies to do that and his language. I mean, you and I have met with Donald Trump down through the years. I've known him 35 years and marched on him, protested him, and have met with him. All of my meetings with Donald Trump has [sic] been far more profane than profound. So I know that he used this kind of language. It is what he does. And I’ve no doubt he's calculated it. You know, the irony is that, 36 years ago today, January 15th, '82, I was in my 20s. James Brown, the godfather of soul, brought me to the White House. He was lobbying President Reagan. He wanted me to go ‘cause I was youth director in New York of Dr. King's northern operation in, uh, New York Operation Bread Basket, and he was lobbying to support Mrs. King and Congressman Conyers, making this a federal holiday. And I said: Mr. Brown, they're never gonna do this. D-, Ronald Reagan called Dr. King a communist. He does not believe in what Dr. King stood for. But we went. And years later, Reagan did sign that proclamation. Now, I’m not -- I'm sure it had a lot more to do with the meeting with James Brown, but it was a movement. But Reagan accepted it, saluted it. Reagan had his own agenda with black America I didn’t agree with, but he had it. Donald Trump doesn't even have a black agenda. He has no urban agenda. He has no agenda for civil rights. His agenda is to race-bait and bring us backwards. And Americans today on Martin Luther King's birthday -- I'm in Washington with his son going to Harlem. We're doing things all day. We need to say we can have a debate between conservatives and progressives over how to deal with civil rights, but neither of us should tolerate people that just race-bait with no plan and just want to play us against each other, which is personified by this president.
(...)
