The President on Saturday suggested that conditions in Cummings’ district, which is majority black and includes parts of Baltimore, are “FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than those at the US-Mexico border.
“If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place,” Trump wrote, arguing that Cummings’ “district is considered the Worst in the USA” and “no human being would want to live there.”
The President gave no indication of the basis of the claim but the tweets followed a segment that aired an hour earlier on Fox News, in which a Republican strategist said conditions in Cummings’ district were worse than those at the southern border.
Reaction to Trump’s tirade was swift with Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young tweeting that it was “completely unacceptable for the political leader of our country to denigrate a vibrant American City like Baltimore, and to viciously attack U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings a patriot and a hero.”
Other Democrats came to Baltimore’s defense on Saturday, including 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris, whose national campaign headquarters is located there.
“Baltimore has become home to my team and it’s disgraceful the president has chosen to start his morning disparaging this great American city,” Harris wrote on Twitter.
CNN’s Sarah Jorgensen and Polo Sandoval contributed to this report.