A Fox news analyst said President Donald Trump had "normalized racism, lying, scapegoating and corruption," in a scathing op-ed for The Hill.
Juan Williams also said in his opinion piece, published Monday, that the president enjoyed a "fake majority," with the views of Senate Republicans representing a small minority of the population.
"Think about this—America's politics are being run by a cabal in the Senate that fails to represent 82 percent of the American people," Williams wrote, adding: "For starters, the 18 percent controlling the Senate have their own right-wing agenda beyond protecting an unpopular president. They want a Supreme Court majority that reflects their views and not the views of the majority of the people."
Williams's comments came after he suggested that Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis was taking his cue from Trump when he used racially charged language, telling voters not to "monkey this up" by voting for his opponent Andrew Gillum, who is black.
The political analyst said in a debate with Fox News host Martha MacCallum that DeSantis was intentionally pushing buttons to appeal to a certain demographic—suggesting president Trump had done exactly the same thing.
"There's a real reason, in this moment, given that DeSantis is…Trump's guy, that [DeSantis] is echoing this talk," said Williams.
"At some point, you have to say, 'You know what? I think you're pushing that button for a very specific reason,'" he wrote. "To excite the worst elements that show up in a Charlottesville, and again, that's where we are in America."
It is not the first time the president has been accused of normalizing racism, having come under attack for his comments following the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, and more recently, facing an accusation by former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman for using the n-word duing his days on The Apprentice.
Two polls released week found a majority of Trump supporters would still vote for a candidate if the candidate had used the n-word, with only 42 percent of Trump supporters responding that they found the term offensive.
"Trump has normalized many horrible things in our politics: racism, lying, scapegoating and corruption," Williams wrote.
"Future historians may look back," he wrote, "and conclude one of the most corrosive things he normalized was minority-posing-as-majority tyranny that cheats the majority of the American people out of their democracy."
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