President Trump laid into the Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday, calling him a “con man, a troublemaker” after the civil rights activist announced he would hold a news conference to talk about the president’s comments about Baltimore.
”I have known Al for 25 years. Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He ’loved Trump!’ He would ask me for favors often,” Trump wrote on Twitter about the founder of the National Action Network. “Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have intimidated Comcast/NBC. Hates Whites & Cops!”
Sharpton announced on his Twitter account late Sunday that he and former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, who was also a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, would “address Trump’s remarks & Bi-Partisan outrage in the black community.”
He responded via Twitter.
“Trump says I’m a troublemaker & con man. I do make trouble for bigots. If he really thought I was a con man he would want me in his cabinet,” Sharpton posted.
The president, in his string of tweets on Monday, continued to take aim at Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) after describing his Maryland congressional district as “rat and rodent infested mess” over the weekend.
”Baltimore, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings, has the worst Crime Statistics in the Nation. 25 years of all talk, no action! So tired of listening to the same old Bull…Next, Reverend Al will show up to complain & protest,” Trump tweeted on Monday. “Nothing will get done for the people in need. Sad!”
The president predicted that if the Democrats speak up in support of the “Squad” — the four minority Democratic congresswomen he feuded with last week — and Cummings, “it will be a long road to 2020.”
In tweets earlier this month, Trump told the foursome — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
All four women are US citizens; three were born in the US, while Omar was born in Somalia.
Requests for comment from Sharpton’s National Action Network weren’t immediately returned.