Toughen up

Sharpton: Clinton needs to 'toughen up'

By Nick Gass

Hillary Clinton needs to steel herself for asymmetrical, unconventional campaign warfare against Donald Trump, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Wednesday, days after telling The New York Times that the Democratic front-runner is going into a "street fight with a guy with a razor and a broken Coca-Cola bottle."

"You can't come in with gloves waiting on the referee to fight Donald Trump. You've got to fight the kind of fight he's fighting. He showed that yesterday," Sharpton said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," in reference to Trump's news conference about donations to veterans groups that degenerated into attacks on the media.

Asked how the need to face Trump should alter Clinton's approach, Sharpton was blunt.

"It means that she's either got to toughen up or have tougher surrogates that can resonate with her base," Sharpton said. "Otherwise she looks like she's out of touch only because you're in a ring and the fight's out in the alley."

The native New Yorker explained that he has "known and dealt with" the city's press "all my life," adding, "Trump is a bully."

"You deal with a bully by calling a bully's shot. You don't try to explain. You're in the schoolyard in New York — Trump and I both grew up in New York — you're in a schoolyard in New York and a bully talks about your family. You don't come back and explain to him, well, let me tell you what parenting class — you come back and call his bluff," Sharpton said. "And you're lecturing to him about parenting rather than dealing with I'm calling your bluff."