“Donald, It’s Time to Get Off the Stage”: Al Sharpton’s Scathing Critique of Trump’s NABJ Appearance
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Reflecting on Donald Trump’s confrontational appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago, a long-time acquaintance of the former president from their days in New York City insisted it is time for Trump to leave the public stage.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rev. Al Sharpton, who also hosts his own show on MSNBC, delivered a scathing critique of the former president. Sharpton criticized Trump’s treatment of the female moderators and the audience, asserting that Trump’s act is wearing thin and has grown tiresome.
Sharpton’s comments were prompted by “Morning Joe” regular Mike Barnicle, who said, “We have known Donald Trump for a long time. You’ve known him longer than I have. What we saw yesterday is just another exhibit of a badly damaged man on stage. I don’t know about you, but watching him it occurred to me that the culture has passed him by. He is playing old-school politics that have always worked for him; hate, envy, resentment, fear of the other. But the culture we live in today is so accelerated that you can measure it by a stopwatch.”
Sharpton responded by shifting the focus to Trump’s motives for attending the NABJ convention. “Well, first of all, what has been perplexing to me is that we’ve been asking the wrong question,” Sharpton began. “A lot of people when it came out that the National Association of Black Journalists had invited him was saying, ‘Why would you invite him?’ The real question is, why did he accept? He accepted to go to do exactly what he did, he wanted to go and say, ‘I will stand up to these Blacks. I will put them in line.'”
Sharpton continued, “That has been the basis of his campaign. To go from ‘Obama is not American’ to ‘Harris is not Black,’ it’s the same song, just a different lyric. That is what he feels put him in the White House in ’16, and it’ll put him in the White House now.”
Sharpton further critiqued Trump’s recent remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris. “Now he’s going to deliver she said she [Kamala Harris] was Indian when she was celebrated as the first Black district attorney in San Francisco, first Black attorney general in California, first Black woman U.S. senator from California, first Black woman vice president,” he noted. “All of a sudden now, we didn’t know she was Black?”
Sharpton concluded his tirade with a plea for Trump to step aside. “I mean, how long are we going to keep playing this old song of Donald Trump?” he asked. “Donald, it’s time to get off the stage and let some folks come on.” Sharpton’s pointed remarks highlight the growing frustration among many who feel that Trump’s divisive rhetoric and outdated political tactics no longer resonate with today’s rapidly evolving cultural landscape.
