Sharpton rips Trump claims about work for Black community: 'Absurdity'

Rev. Al Sharpton dismissed the idea that former President Trump helped build economic security for Black Americans.

Speaking on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, Sharpton said Trump is part of the reason why the wealth gap between Black and white Americans exists today. 

“The absurdity of Donald Trump acting like he did something,” Sharpton said to host Joe Scarborough.

“As you know, Joe, I knew Donald Trump for 35 years, fought with him, went to meet with him, tried to get him to do things. I’ve never seen a Black employee in Donald Trump’s office. Not one. I used to say going up Trump Towers was like going up the Rocky Mountains — the higher you got, the whiter it got. You didn’t see one Black employee at his trial. So, he did what for Blacks? He didn’t do it as a private citizen, and as Steve Rattner’s charts show, he didn’t do it as the president.”

Sharpton’s comments come on the heels of an interview the former president gave to Semafor, in which he said Black men in particular see all that he’s done for them. 

“They see what I’ve done, and they see strength, they want strength, OK,” Trump said. “They want strength, they want security. They want jobs, they want to have their jobs. They don’t want to have millions of people come and take their jobs. And we — that’s what’s happening. These people that are coming into our country are taking jobs away from African Americans, and they know it.”

Trump’s comments also drew disdain from former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele. Steele labeled Trump’s comments as “B.S.”

On Wednesday, Sharpton added that reaching equitable generational wealth will take more than one generation. He pointed to the decades of oppression Black Americans faced since the end of slavery that has held the community back.

“You must remember that after they stopped Reconstruction and went into this era that ended up with Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, there was no legal change till 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education. You’re talking about a span of almost a century,” Sharpton told Scarborough. 

“We’re the only race that, by law, couldn’t do certain things. We had biases against others that came to the country, but we were named by law not to have equal rights. And we’re talking about my parents, my grandparents. So you’re right. You can’t erase that in a generation, because by law we couldn’t do certain things.”