Joe Scarborough sure seems comfortable hammering the supposed racism of Donald Trump. On Thursday he compared the President to bigot George Wallace. Yet, he's never had a problem with having race hustler Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton on his program. Sharpton appeared on Morning Joe to discuss Trump’s tearing down of the Obama Affordable Housing policy.
Scarborough had to start it off by comparing Trump to George Wallace:
Among the notable reactions was this from Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who tweeted in part, our president is now a proud vocal segregationist. This, rev, you know this is just so clumsy, it’s so ham fisted, he has become a parody of himself becoming a parody of himself. We are so many layers down of this man becoming a parody, it's baffling. But this is George Wallace, 1968. This is George Wallace, 1972. And I almost feel like when I say that I need to apologize to George Wallace because I don't think Wallace was ever this clumsy and dumb in his blatant outreach on segregation.
Comparing Trump to George Wallace, brutal and noted racist, is bad enough but to say you need to apologize to him for the sin of comparing him to Trump? Not a great look Joe. When will Scarborough force Sharpton to answer for quotes like this: "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." NPR recounted the race hustler's comments back in 1991:
Sharpton criticized Jewish merchants in Crown Heights for selling diamonds from apartheid South Africa. He also said:
All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no coffee klatch, no skinnin' and grinnin'." Among the banners hanging to commemorate the boy, one read "Hitler did not do the job."
Sharpton took the Trump attacks even further:
He has made a business and political career out of ,they are going to ruin your neighborhood, I will keep them out of your neighborhood. I will protect you from the blacks. And that's what he's going to hear in a blatant way with no cover saying they will ruin your neighborhood. It's all of that that comes with it, they are robbers, thieves, they'll rape your daughters, that's what he's messaging here.
That would be your favorite messaging Sharpton, except it’s usually aimed at Jews and often incites violent race riots, all designed to line your pockets. But Sharpton wasn’t done, saving his worst for last to end the segment:
The questions being raised are criminal justice and police reform and things of that nature in that criminal justice space. He's appealing to them, talking about something that is not what these demonstrations are about, not what we're mobilizing about. We're talking about voting rights as well as the criminal justice reform acts in Washington. And he's still acting like aunt bea is still worried about someone moving into the neighborhood. Aunt bea is not on television anymore, Mr. President, and we have to stop pretending like this man is even in tune with what's going on in 2020. He's not. He's still watching "F troop" at night and waiting on aunt bea to finish with the apple pie.
That sounds like an attack on rural America, the kind of attacks Democrats love to use and what got them Trump. Well done media, you still haven’t learned anything.
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Read the full transcript below to learn more.
MSNBC Morning Joe
7-30-20
6:14 AM ET
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let's bring in the host of Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton. And rev, Joe mentioned Trump's tweet on the suburbs. This was quite something yesterday. The New York Times headlines sums up the latest fear mongering tweet by the president in the run-up to November, quote, “Trump plays on racist fears of terrorized suburbs to court white voters.” In a series of tweets yesterday afternoon, the president wrote in part, quote, “I'm happy to inform all of the people living in their suburban lifestyle dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. Your housing prices will go up based on the market and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH rule.” He also spoke yesterday in Texas.
DONALD TRUMP: You know, the suburbs, people fight all of their lives to get into the suburbs and have a beautiful home. There will be no more low income housing forced into the suburbs. I abandoned and took away and just rescinded the rule, it’s been going on for years, I've seen conflict for years it's been hell for suburbia.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, uh whatever. Among the notable reactions was this from Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who tweeted in part, our president is now a proud vocal segregationist. This, rev, you know this is just so clumsy, it’s sop ham fisted, he has become a parody of himself becoming a parody of himself. We are so many layers down of this man becoming a parody, it's baffling. But this is George Wallace, 1968. This is George Wallace, 1972. And I almost feel like when I say that I need to apologize to George Wallace because I don't think Wallace was ever this clumsy and dumb in his blatant outreach on segregation. This is just pure segregation and the president is very proud of it.
AL SHARPTON: We've gone from dog whistling to dog barking now and hoping that he barks at the dog the dog will bark back. I think when you look at the fact that he is totally not only tone deaf, he's out of time in terms of being consistent with the time in which he's in. The white suburban is not there. And those that are there are not in the spirit of what he's talking about. But we're in the era of gentrification, Mr. President, where the white suburban is not the white suburban anymore. But his appeals shows a consistency back to the 1970s when he and his father were sued by the federal government for housing discrimination. He has made a business and political career out of ,they are going to ruin your neighborhood, I will keep them out of your neighborhood. I will protect you from the blacks. And that's what he's going to hear in a blatant way with no cover saying they will ruin your neighborhood. It's all of that that comes with it, they are robbers, thieves, they'll rape your daughters, that's what he's messaging here. What is even more offensive because those of us in the civil rights community that have known him are not surprised but it but what is so blatantly despicable, Joe, he does it on the period of time we're mourning John Lewis, who will be funeralized today, not only did he not do anything to say, in any serious manner, how great John Lewis was, he's going to use this period that we have three presidents on their way to John Lewis' funeral, to blatantly play the race card and appeal to what he hopes are the white fears that still there. This is as low as you can go.
SCARBOROUGH: Of course, Willie, we have compared him, many people have compared him to George Wallace and all the despicable things that George Wallace said. But in the '68 and '72 campaign. You have Trump stumbling around here trying to dog whistle. But it ends up, again, being a blaring horn. And as Reverend Al said, he just seems out of touch and clueless. He's like 50 years too late. White flight happened back 50 years ago when he and his father were being sued by the federal government for discriminating against black people.
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, this is the suburbs of leave it to beaver that still exists in the president's mind but doesn't exist today. And let’s remember, it was less than two years ago that it was the suburbs that came out and voted against Donald Trump. The suburbs don't like the rhetoric they hear from Donald Trump, particularly on this issue. It's unclear how he thinks this expands the map for him or wins him another state or at least holds a state that he knows he's going to need. So Jonathan Lemire, we’ve heard yesterday from the president about the suburban lifestyle dream, he's going to keep it intact. He addressed last week,quote, the suburban housewives of America. What is the tactical move here, is this strategic? Who is he trying to hold onto? Who does he think it appeals to?
(...)
SCARBOROUGH: Reverend Al, that's the thing that is again so flummoxing is that. This hasn't worked for him in the past, his lying about caravans of leprosy carrying news people -- news people, what a funny word, what a funny term, saying that people with leprosy were coming from Mexico and they were going to the border and the president sending troops to the border to try to reassure white people that he was going to keep the country as white as possible. It didn't work. Largest landslide by vote in the history of this republic in a midterm election, Republicans were routed. Then you look back at the polls since George Floyd died, that killing, you look at what happened after June the 1st when he stormed peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so he could hold up a bible, all the numbers dropped precipitously. This appealed to racism. This overt appeal to racism has hurt him repeatedly in the suburbs. I'm not talking about morality here. I'm not talking about what should be. I'm talking about hard ball politics. I'm talking about what is. And what is is a group of suburban voters who are offended and put off when a president makes overt appeals to racism and he goes down in the polls. This president, though, even though he's surrounded by people who understand this is a losing proposition. The man can't help himself. He thinks it's 1973.
SHARPTON: Absolutely. And to show that he just is out of it in many ways, is the politics, there is the evidence there, as you cited from the midterm elections in 2018, the politics of it doesn't even work. I can't tell you, Joe, the amount of people, white, who have stopped me that say, I live in the coast -- what we call the gold coast of New Jersey, the nice homes sections, and I may have a different politics than you reverend, Al, but I can't fathom how you justify a man's knee on a man's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. I think it's an insult to the intelligence of the people he thinks he's appealing to that they would be on the other side of the questions being raised now. The questions being raised are criminal justice and police reform and things of that nature in that criminal justice space. He's appealing to them, talking about something that is not what these demonstrations are about, not what we're mobilizing about. We're talking about voting rights as well as the criminal justice reform acts in Washington. And he's still acting like aunt bea is still worried about someone moving into the neighborhood. Aunt bea is not on television anymore, Mr. President, and we have to stop pretending like this man is even in tune with what's going on in 2020. He's not. He's still watching "F troop" at night and waiting on aunt bea to finish with the apple pie.
