Montel Williams attacks Trump for using his racism to sell t-shirts

On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," television personality and ex-Republican Montel Williams scorched President Donald Trump for trying to make campaign money off the "Fredo" slur he hurled at CNN's Chris Cuomo.

"Come on, the president of the United States is selling t-shirts to make fun of Chris Cuomo," said Williams. "But using a derogatory phrase, and that is what a lot of people in this country don't understand right now, we look at what we perceive as racist comments coming from the president, we think that they're only going to be directed at brown people. But let's remember, Chris, go back in time. Remember, this country for a period of time, we fought riots in the streets because we didn't like Polish people. We fought riots in the streets because we didn't like Italians. We fought riots in the streets because we didn't like Croatians. We don't like anybody that we claim is different from us."

"Now we've got the president of the United States selling t-shirts, really disparaging Italian-Americans by using a term 'Fredo,'" said Williams.

"You know your history," said Matthews. "No street-level windows because they didn't want the Protestants throwing the rocks through the windows. That was how bad it was back then."

"How about some more history, Chris," said Williams. "Look, a week ago, the president was disparaging my hometown, which is Baltimore, Maryland. But let's also remember that there was at one point in time Baltimore was the capital of the United States. And Baltimore also was one of probably the most instrumental states — or cities in this country, that helped build our infrastructure the way it did when we had Bethlehem Steel, we had McCormick ... He was disparaging the city that was probably one of the greatest cities this country ever had."

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