During one of the many contentious exchanges that occurred with Chris Wallace in Fox News Sunday This weekend, President Donald Trump randomly invoked the name of Al Sharpton in response to an unrelated question about the name change for military bases. Now the reverend and the MSNBC host are responding.
When Wallace asked Trump if he really plans to veto a bill that would rename bases like Fort Bragg that are named after the Confederate generals, noting that “the military says they are for this,” Trump replied, “I don’t care what the military says. I’m supposed to make the decision.
Are we going to name it after the Rev. Al Sharpton? the president asked, before speaking about the two “beautiful world wars” that were “vicious and horrible”.
Later on Sunday, a TMZ reporter tracked down Sharpton in New York City and asked him what he thinks Trump meant by his comment.
“Well, the only way it makes sense, and it’s hard to make sense of a meaningless person, is that I’ve been very public defending the change of names for these bases and tearing down statues of Confederate generals.” he said, a little generously.
Noting that he has run television commercials on the subject, he added: “Since he watches television all the time, he probably had it in mind. Because he doesn’t read intelligence reports, but he watches television. ”
“But I would like to teach you,” Sharpton continued. “I was never in the military and you would usually name military bases after the military.” He then noted that, like the president, he did not serve in the military, but unlike the president, “he did not use any false information to avoid going to the military,” alluding to Trump’s diagnosis of bone spurs.
When asked if he believed Trump was joking during the Fox News interview, Sharpton said: “I think it was a failed sarcasm, and I think it was because I’m generally the one who confronts him on these issues.”
He said that when Trump “thinks about race, I am one of the names that comes to mind, because like a flea that will not come out of his eyes, I have been the racial person that has always been in his eyes.” decades of their bigotry and racism. ”
Finally, Sharpton asked Trump, “Why would you want to passionately fight to honor fans unless it’s okay with you? And if bigotry is okay with you, then the nominal way of it is that you are bigotry. ”
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