The Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s claims that he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign during the 2024 election cycle.
“Absolutely not,” Sharpton said during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe when asked if he was paid to endorse Harris. He further accused Trump of using the allegations as a last-ditch attempt to distract from fallout over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, arguing that the president is “trying to flood the zone to take any pressure off of him and try to put his MAGA base back together again.”
The saga started in October 2024 when Sharpton, an MSNBC anchor, brought Harris on the network for what critics described as a softball interview as she campaigned against Trump to become the country’s next president.
Federal Election Commission filings scrutinized after the interview showed that Harris donated $500,000 to Sharpton’s nonprofit organization, the National Action Network, weeks before the media sitdown, leading Trump and other Republicans to accuse the reverend of being financially bribed to support her struggling campaign.
Sharpton acknowledged Monday that National Action Network received the funds, but he denied that such an action represented a conflict of interest and argued that neither he nor his nonprofit organization ever directly endorsed Harris. A defamation lawsuit against Trump could be coming, the reverend threatened, because the president “had knowledge this time that there was no endorsement and that I didn’t get any money.”
“This went to the nonprofit that I’m connected to,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton stopped just short of endorsing Harris during a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024. Noting that his National Action Network makes it a policy not to endorse presidential candidates, Sharpton told the crowd that with Harris, “We are now on our way to the Oval Office. We won’t go back.”
Sharpton’s dig at Trump this week came after the president on Saturday called for the reverend and other Democratic-aligned celebrities to be prosecuted for allegedly being bribed to endorse the Harris campaign.
“YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PAY FOR AN ENDORSEMENT,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social. “IT IS TOTALLY ILLEGAL TO DO SO. Can you imagine what would happen if politicians started paying for people to endorse them. All hell would break out! Kamala, and all of those that received Endorsement money, BROKE THE LAW.”
Other celebrities Trump has accused of endorsing Harris in exchange for money include Beyoncé.
MSNBC ‘UNWARE’ HARRIS CAMPAIGN DONATED $500K TO AL SHARPTON NONPROFIT BEFORE FRIENDLY INTERVIEW
There were rumors in October 2024 that the Harris campaign paid Beyoncé $10 million to endorse the then-vice president’s bid against Trump with a speech at a Houston rally. While the event attracted large crowds amid the widespread belief that the Grammy-winning artist was set to perform, Beyoncé gave only a brief address expressing support for Harris “as a mother.”
The Harris team vigorously rebuffed claims of a bribed endorsement as lies, with FEC filings showing no record of such a $10 million payment. However, FEC records released following the election showed that the former vice president’s campaign paid Beyonce’s production company $165,000.