The Rev. Al Sharpton said Monday he is not going to "bite the bait" President Donald Trump put out in a set of early morning tweets, during which he called the civil rights leader a conman and accused him of hating white people and police officers.
"He's going to attack the most visible black person that comes across his desk and he thinks he can set a tone," Sharpton told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," calling into the show where he is a frequent guest. "I'm not going to bite the bait."
Sharpton, in the wake of Trump's tweets, posted a photo on Instagram and Twitter showing Trump at a National Action Network convention speaking with Sharpton, singer James Brown, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
"Despite the fact that I marched on him about Central Park, he came to my convention," Sharpton said. "Now all of a sudden, I'm all of these names. Fine. The fact of the matter is, I couldn't have conned him to come. He came because he was trying to have it both ways."
Trump, he added, will "do anything, if it's to his advantage."
"We need to stand up and deal with the fact that this president's policies hurt people all over this country . . . we need not get into the sideshow of a man that one minute calls you names and next minute stands up and smiling at your convention," Sharpton said.
He also pointed out three weeks after Trump was elected, he called him after seeing him on the MSNBC program and asked him to come to meet with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
"Why would you want as president-elect of the United States to meet with a troublemaker and a conman?" Sharpton said.
Sharpton also said Americans must start challenging Republicans seeking re-election over how they back Trump and "tell them that you are co-signers and co-conspirators, and accomplices, to the moral decay that this president is putting forward."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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