President Donald Trump seems to have woken up in the mood for an attack Saturday morning and what do you know? He once again chose a black lawmaker as a target. This time the subject of his ire was Rep. Elijah Cummings, who has been highly critical of the president’s border policies. Cummings, who also said last week he had no doubts that Trump is a racist, is a “brutal bully” and his Baltimore district is “disgusting” and a place where “no human being would want to live,” the commander in chief wrote in what was effectively his second major attack against black members of Congress this month.
“Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous,” Trump tweeted about the head of the House Oversight Committee. “HIs district is considered the Worst in the USA as proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming [sic] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could clean up this very dangerous & filthy mess.” (Yes, the commander in chief misspelled the name of the lawmaker he decided to target.)
It seems likely Trump got the idea to blast Cummings from Fox News considering his tweets came shortly after Fox and Friends did a whole segment criticizing Cummings’ district. In the segment, Republican strategist Kimberly Klacik called it the “most dangerous district in America.” Yet the language Trump used was also reminiscent of his attack against four Democratic congresswomen of color earlier this month, when he called on them to “go back” to the “crime infested” countries they came from. Cummings’ district is 55 percent African-American and 35 percent white.
Trump then went on to imply that Cummings is corrupt and said he should be investigated. “Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States,” Trump wrote. “No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!”
