Sharpton says Tim Scott’s rhetoric around Trump is ‘humiliating’

The Rev. Al Sharpton rebuked Sen. Tim Scott on Wednesday over the South Carolina Republican’s support for former President Trump, saying his rhetoric is “humiliating.” 

Reflecting on Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary results on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sharpton predicted Trump will be the GOP nominee and said that the former president is “demanding people bow to him.” 

One of those people, Sharpton said, is Scott.

Sharpton said there have been few moments in his life during which he’s been “more embarrassed” than when watching Scott praise Trump at the former president’s victory speech in New Hampshire.

“It was humiliating to watch what Tim Scott did as a sitting senator,” said Sharpton.

After Trump was declared the winner of New Hampshire’s GOP primary — beating former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by about 11 percentage points — the former president pointed to the recent endorsement by Scott, who joined him on stage.

“You must really hate her,” Trump said to Scott, referring to Haley.  

Laughing, Scott joined Trump at the microphone and said, “I just love you!”

Sharpton said the interaction “bothered me all night.”

“It’s not a good thing in my life to watch Tim do that,” Sharpton said. “He has a right to be Republican; he has a right to do Donald Trump. But to do it in such a way that is so humiliating was troubling.”

The Hill has reached out to Scott’s office for comment.

Scott, who suspended his own campaign for the White House in November, endorsed Trump earlier this month. At the time, he said Trump would be the candidate to unite the country. 

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Some have begun to posit whether Scott will be selected as Trump’s running mate, should the former president secure the 2024 nomination.

Sharpton has been an outspoken Trump critic for some time and has been trying to steer other Black men away from Trump’s campaign. 

Last August, Sharpton said he was going to “keep tracking” the narrative that Trump is popular with Black men. 

In an interview on MSNBC, Sharpton pointed to Trump’s history with the “Exonerated Five,” formerly known as the “Central Park Five,” as a reason why Black men especially should not be enamored with the former president. 

In 1989, Trump took out multiple full-page newspaper ads demanding that the death penalty be reinstated in New York City after the attack and rape of a female jogger was blamed on five teenagers — all of whom were Black or Latino — who were later proven innocent.

“Black men need to know they were all young Black men. One spent 13 years in jail,” Sharpton said in August. “Let them come and tell the rappers and other Black men being seduced by Trump what he did in his hometown to innocent to Black men.”

Updated at 12:27 p.m. ET