MSNBC host Reverend Al Sharpton accepted $500,000 from Kamala Harris’ campaign weeks before he handed her a gushing interview. The Washington Free Beacon released campaign finance records which indicate Harris’ campaign gave two $250,000 payments to Sharpton’s National Action Network on September 5 and October 1.
After receiving the payments, on October 20, Sharpton praised Harris’ ‘extraordinary historic campaign’ in a softball interview, and branded Donald Trump ‘hostile and erratic.’
The Harris campaign maintains that payments to Sharpton’s organization came as part of a $5.4 million fund that was given out to black and Hispanic advocacy groups to help bolster her candidacy among minority voters.
The Daily Mail reports how the payments coincide with questions over how the Harris campaign blew through over $1 billion in the short term of her doomed candidacy, leaving it in $20 million in debt.
The debt results in payments such as a six-figure sum to create a set for Harris’ ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast interview, and $1 million to Oprah’s production company, Harpo. However, the Daily Mail writes, “the move spectacularly failed as Harris struggled among key demographics, including losing seven percent of Hispanic voters and eight percent of black voters compared to Joe Biden’s 2020 totals.”
Former Congressman John Linder led the charge in condemning the payments to Sharpton’s non-profit, branding his interview with Harris a ‘campaign commercial.’ ‘That requires a disclaimer that it was approved and paid for by the Harris campaign,’ he wrote.
MSNBC has stayed silent over the payment, despite suspending Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in 2010 for making $4,000 in campaign donations, adds the Daily Mail.