Fox News personalities Charlie Hurt and Juan Williams clashed over President Trump’s comments about Baltimore and Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings during a panel on America’s Newsroom Tuesday morning.
Trump called Cummings a “brutal bully” and “racist” while describing his majority-black district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” in tweets over the weekend, which he has since defended.
“Only in Washington would somebody see the president attacking Elijah Cummings and say, ‘Oh, this is all about race.’ It’s not about race. He’s talking about the Russian collusion fairy tale. He is talking about the fact that Elijah Cummings went after his Homeland Security director who is desperately trying to fix the crisis at the border,” Hurt argued. “He is being combative, as he always is. He is an equal opportunity offender when it comes to being combative.”
“I don’t think it’s all about race, by the way,” Williams countered. “I think, Charlie, that what you have to understand is there is a pattern here, not to just be taken in isolation.
“This is a guy who went after John Lewis, the congressman from Georgia. He went after Fredrika Wilson, the congresswoman from Florida —,” Williams continued before being cut off by Hurt and anchor Bill Hemmer.
Hemmer and Hurt listed a handful of politicians that aren’t black who Trump has attacked.
“When he goes after people of color, he excites racial passions in this country. He divides us,” Williams added. “I think it hits people of color in specific. They are a vulnerable population. And you are absolutely going after them with a vengeance that suggests — and again, you look at what is going on in the country, a spike in terms of hate crimes, white nationalism.”
Hemmer proceeded to ask Williams what his thoughts were about some of Trump’s policies that have benefited black people and asked how those things made him feel.
The contributor said he’d “congratulate” the president for those accomplishments.
