Sharpton on O’Reilly’s $25K Donation: ‘Far Outweighed by Vile and Hateful Things He Says’
The escalting war between MSNBC’s Al Sharpton and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly took an unexpected turn last night when O’Reilly revealed that he had donated $25,000 to Sharpton’s charity to help pay for Christmas gifts and dinner for underprivileged families in Harlem. Earlier today, Sharpton offered some choice words for O’Reilly in an interview, but this afternoon on his show he really let the Fox host have it.
Sharpton pointed that like O’Reilly, he never mentioned the donation until now. “Bill doesn’t realize it, but this story actually reveals what kind of person he is… Bill gave that money privately to someone he’s publicly called, quote, a ‘race hustler’, working in what he calls the ‘grievance industry.'” Sharpton asked, “What are we supposed to think about a man who privately is generous, but who says the most vile and divisive things in public?”
The MSNBC host then played a montage of some the worst things O’Reilly has said about him, asking, “Why would Bill quietly donate that money to my group while loudly telling his right-wing audience that this is what he thinks of me?… Why would Bill give a so-called race hustler $25,000 to help the poor at Christmas? And why would he write a check to help people that he’s called parasites who just want stuff?”
“The sad truth,” Sharpton concluded, “is that the good that Bill did with the check he wrote is far outweighed by the vile and hateful things he says on the air night after night.”
Watch video below, via MSNBC:
[photo via screengrab]
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