A House Judiciary Committee hearing about police brutality devolved into chaos after Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz confronted Al Sharpton over things he has said over his long career of controversial statements.
Gaetz, 37, brought up an old resolution MSNBC host Joe Scarborough introduced when he was a congressman, which condemned Sharpton for “racist and anti-Semitic views,” including calling Jews “blood-sucking Jews” and “Jew bastards.”
“They are patently untrue,” Sharpton said. “I never said that.”
Gaetz pressed Sharpton on whether he had ever called Jews “white interlopers” or “diamond merchants,” and Sharpton admitted he called one person an “interloper,” though he did not know he was Jewish.
Sharpton, 64, claimed that he and Scarborough are now very close, as both are hosts on MSNBC. Gaetz and Sharpton repeatedly cut each other off during the questioning, leading Chairman Jerry Nadler to intervene.
“Rev. Sharpton has come before the House Judiciary Committee as a purported expert on policing, and yet his bigoted statements undermine the bipartisan work we should be doing to ensure that all citizens are able to come together and have safe communities,” Gaetz said.
Sharpton said he used language “graphically sometimes” to attack both whites and blacks, but that he was an “equal-opportunity attacker.” He evaded questions on whether he called white people “crackers” or ancient Greeks “homos.”
“Those are bigoted statements,” Gaetz then shouted at Sharpton.
“Yelling, and getting upset is beneath your office. You should calm down,” Sharpton said.
Nadler, 72, called Gaetz’s questioning “obnoxious” but said he could not object to them. “This is an outrage,” Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee cut in, saying Gaetz was impugning Sharpton’s character. Gaetz and Sharpton continued yelling at each other before Nadler cut them off, saying the congressman’s time had expired.
Sharpton rose to prominence in the ’80s and ’90s for his activism, which has been described as “race-baiting.” He is especially notorious for his role in the 1991 Crown Heights riots.
