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It's wasn't levity that spurred attendees of the National Association of Black Journalists convention to laugh at former President Donald Trump, one attendee says.

Huffington Post senior editor Philip Lewis Thursday detailed to MSNBC viewers the strange "vibe" he felt at the Chicago convention as Trump fielded questions in what Lewis called a campaign "train wreck."

Reflecting on Donald Trump's confrontational appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists' convention in Chicago, one long time acquaintance of the former president dating back to their days in New York City insisted it is time for Trump to leave the public stage.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the Rev. Al Sharpton — a host of his own show on MSNBC — went on a tirade about the former president and how he treated the female moderators and the audience and claimed Trump's act is getting way past old.

Sharpton was prompted to address Trump's controversial appearance by "Morning Joe" regular Mike Barnicle who stated, "We have known Donald Trump for a long time. You've known him longer than I have. What we saw yesterday is just another exhibit of a badly-damaged man on stage. I don't know about you, but watching him it occurred to me that the culture has passed him by. He is playing old school politics that has always worked for him; hate, envy, resentment, fear of the other. But the culture we live in today is so accelerated that you can measure it by a stopwatch."

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"Well, first of all, what has been perplexing to me is that we've been asking the wrong question," Sharpton began. "A lot of people when it came out that the National Association of Black Journalists had invited him was saying, 'Why would you invite him?' The real question is, why did he accept? He accepted to go to do exactly what he did, he wanted to go and say,' 'I will stand up to these Blacks. I will put them in line.'"

"That has been the basis of his campaign. To go from 'Obama is not American' to 'Harris is not black,'" he added. "It's the same song, just a different lyric and that is what he feels put him in the White House in '16, and it'll put him in the White House now."

"Now he's going to deliver she said she [Kamal Harris] was Indian when she was celebrated as the first Black district attorney in San Francisco, first Black attorney general in California, first Black woman U.S. senator from California, first Black woman vice president," he later added before asking, "All of a sudden now, we didn't know she was Black?"

"I mean, how long are we going to keep playing this old song of Donald Trump?" he stated. "Donald, it's time to get off the stage and let some folks come on."

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As part of the "Morning Joe" post-mortem on Donald Trump's abrasive and confrontational appearance before Black journalists in Chicago on Wednesday that ended with his handlers cutting the event short, the New York Times' Mara Gay noted one moment that she felt was illustrative of the former president's attitude towards Black women.

Speaking with fill-in hosts Jonathan Lemire and Katty Kay, Gay —who serves on the Times editorial board — followed up commentary about the speech from the Rev. Al Sharpton and began, "There was one more thing that I noticed when I watched the event yesterday, which was the deeply held personal animus and contempt that Donald Trump showed for the Black women interviewing him and the journalists in the room."

"I believe it's going to be — if he does take up Kamala Harris's challenge to debate him, I believe it'll be a problem for him with everyone outside of that Republican, the most rabid right-wing base. People are going to see that," she added.

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She then noted, "At one point, he even reached over to tighten ABC News' Rachel Scott's water bottle," before observing, "which was just an expression of dominance."

"He couldn't help himself," she elaborated. "It was almost as though he could not take, personally take the fact that these black women on stage had the platform..."

"They belong on the stage," Sharpton then interjected. "You are black and a woman, you shouldn't be questioning me."

"Right," Gay agreed.

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