Joe Scarborough: Is Trump ‘Sending Signals’ to White Nationalists by Attacking John Lewis?

Joe Scarborough wondered if Donald Trump was trying to appeal to his white supremacist supporters by ripping John Lewis during his Axios interview.

On Tuesday, Morning Joe reviewed Trump’s conversation with Jonathan Swan, in which where the president dismissed Lewis and attacked the late congressman for not attending his inauguration. Scarborough laughed as he called Trump a “poor, tortured, twisted soul” for still complaining about this, and “he can’t even say anything nice” about Lewis’ legacy as a civil rights icon.

“Is that because he’s extraordinarily small,” Scarborough asked, “or he’s still sending signals out to white nationalists like David Duke who say that his election was great for America?”

“Probably a combination of both,” Al Sharpton responded. He went on to note that all three of Trump’s predecessors attended Lewis’ funeral in Atlanta, whereas for him, “you, the sitting president, are so small, that when someone asked you about a historic figure laying in state, you say he didn’t come to my inauguration, he didn’t come to my speech. That’s like you asking me about a great American figure and me saying but they didn’t come hear me preach last Sunday. How small can you be?”

As Sharpton recalled the suffering Lewis endured in his pursuit for civil rights, he returned to Scarborough’s premise by arguing that Trump is implicitly saying something by refusing to acknowledge any of that.

“For him not to recognize that but say there were many people, to minimize that is to send signals to the most racist and the most backward and bigoted parts of the electorate which he wants to appeal to,” Sharpton said. “And I think it’s sad that we have this person who has such a low and small self-concept that everything is about his insecurity rather than being able to see the bigger picture.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.