The Rev. Al Sharpton has denied that the opponents and critics of former President Donald Trump are “taking him out of context” when comparing him to various dictators, claiming that “that’s who he is.”
Sharpton’s claim comes after Trump, who is facing multiple legal battles in his pursuit to become president again, has hinted that he could potentially indict his political opponents should he ever become president again. Sharpton also noted that aside from Trump’s comments about potential indictments, he also “embraced present dictators” while serving as president and had discussed “writing love letters to the dictator in North Korea,” referring to Kim Jong Un.
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“We’re not taking him out of context or interpreting him,” Sharpton said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “And let’s remember, Joe, when you talk about he — and the New York Times talked about — he saying that he would go after his opponents and his critics and try and criminalize them and prosecute them, this is a man that sat in the White House and watched for hours an insurrection he incited like he was watching some drama that he was addicted to. He enjoyed it.”
Sharpton added that Trump’s critics are not trying to frame the former president as a dictator but rather are “accepting the framing he’s given himself.”
“If somebody tells you that’s who they are, that’s who they are,” Sharpton said. “Stop trying to put a different frame on an ugly picture.”
The two hosts of the show, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, also expressed concern that Trump would become president again, as they have done in the past. On Tuesday, Scarborough warned that if Trump wins in 2024, he would imprison and execute “whoever he’s allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country.”
“Just look at his past,” Scarborough said. “It’s not really hard to read. Again, the only thing that stood between him and the destruction of American democracy was the federal judiciary.”
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Trump’s legal battles stem from a multitude of indictments issued against him this year, ranging from keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence to his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol protests. Despite this, he is still leading the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential primary race, ahead of the likes of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
As the expected nominee for the Republican Party, Trump winning the party’s 2024 nomination would set the stage for a rematch between him and President Joe Biden. Recent polling data found that Trump received 46% of registered voters’ support while Biden received 44% in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, with the poll’s margin of error between 5.5 and 5.6 percentage points, meaning such an election would be close.
