Trump widens war on critics
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump widened his war on critics of color on Monday with fresh attacks on the Rev. Al Sharpton and other political opponents even as he gathered his own African American allies at the White House to defend him against charges of racism.
In a third straight day of broadsides against black figures, Trump denounced Sharpton on Twitter as “a con man” who “Hates Whites & Cops” and again assailed Rep. Elijah E. Cummings and his Baltimore-based district, drawing rebukes from Maryland Republicans as well as Democrats.
Trump’s determination to intensify the furor rather than move on guaranteed that it would continue to dominate the political debate in Washington and force many of the president’s fellow Republicans to choose whether to stand by him, break with him or, in the case of most, find a way to keep out of the discussion.
The president linked the clash with Cummings to his earlier demand that four Democratic congresswomen of color “go back” to their home countries, and he cast it in electoral terms. “If the Democrats are going to defend the Radical Left ‘Squad’ and King Elijah’s Baltimore Fail, it will be a long road to 2020,” he wrote on Twitter. “The good news for the Dems is that they have the Fake News Media in their pocket!”
To defend himself, Trump enlisted a couple of his reliable African American supporters. He brought a group of about 20 “inner city pastors,” as he called them, to the White House for a meeting Monday about how to help the black community.
“The president is concerned about the whole nation, about everybody in the nation,” said Alveda C. King, a niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and leader of an anti-abortion group who also belongs to “Women for Trump” and is a Fox News contributor.
Trump’s latest tweets provoked increasingly angry reactions in Baltimore and increasingly acute concerns inside the West Wing. Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, criticized the president’s attack on the state’s largest city as “outrageous and inappropriate.”
Several White House officials expressed agreement during a senior staff meeting on Monday morning that the president’s attacks were a bad move, according to people informed about the discussion, but they were uncertain who could intervene with him — or if anyone would even dare try.
In taking on Sharpton, the president confronted a fellow veteran of New York’s often inflammatory racial politics.
“I have known Al for 25 years,” Trump wrote. “Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He ‘loved Trump!’ He would ask me for favors often. 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, a longtime civil rights leader and MSNBC host, fired back during his appearance in Baltimore.
“Called me a troublemaker?” he said. “Yes, I make trouble for bigots. I made trouble for him with Central Park. I made trouble with him for birtherism. I’m going to keep making trouble for bigots. As far as me being a con man, if he really thought I was a con man he’d be nominating me for his Cabinet.”