MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Wednesday called out Donald Trump's racist attacks on Black cities.
The presumptive Republican nominee trashed Milwaukee, the host city for the party's convention next month, during a meeting with lawmakers last week, which drove the "Morning Joe" host to crack open a tall boy of Milwaukee's Best last week on the air and spurred another conversation Wednesday about Trump's racial animus.
"Trump, of course, has been on the defensive about his views on Milwaukee after telling Republican lawmakers in a private meeting last week that the city was, quote, 'horrible,'" Scarborough said. "One week later when he's in Wisconsin he's saying that he, quote, 'loves Milwaukee.' Again, you think they can handle this a little bit better, but the guy obviously has contempt for Milwaukee. It doesn't matter how much people spin it on Fox News."
Trump remains on the defensive after reports that he would stay 90 miles away in one of his branded hotels in Chicago during the convention rather than Milwaukee, and the Rev. Al Sharpton pointed to a troubling trend about cities the former president insults.
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"I notice he's been very selective on the cities that he attacks," Sharpton said. "They usually have Black mayors and usually have a large urban community, and I had the mayor of Milwaukee on 'Politics Nation' the other night and we talked about that. You know, he never attacks certain cities who have some of the same challenges, but I think that we're getting ahead of ourselves. He has a sentencing four days before the convention, and who knows, the judge may have other accommodations prepared for him, I don't know. It's maybe unlikely, but I wouldn't rule it out."
Scarborough agreed, saying that Trump felt the same way about some American cities as the African and Caribbean nations he slurred as "sh*thole countries."
"The rev really just broke the code, really," Scarborough said. "After Trump trashed Milwaukee, people said, 'Oh, he would never say that.' Okay, well, we found out that he did say that and they made a lot of different, [saying] it was about crime, it was about the Brewers' middle relievers. It was about this, it was about that. No, it wasn't. He trashed Milwaukee, but if you read the articles surrounding it, Republicans in Wisconsin have been trashing Milwaukee for a very long time, and it's all the as the rev said, it's about cities with urban populations, with Black mayors. Republicans have always talked that way about Philadelphia. 'Oh, they are going to just sit and wait and see how many Black votes they can steal in Philadelphia because Philadelphia is so corrupt or Detroit.'"
"David Frum has a piece out of Donald Trump trashing Detroit," Scarborough added. "We heard what he said about Africa and Caribbean nations. He might as well say it about cities, too, where there's a predominantly Black population chances are very, very good that Donald Trump is not going to like that city."
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