FILE PHOTO: House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) arrives at the committee contempt votes on whether to find Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for withholding Censu
President Donald Trump unloaded on Representative Elijah Cummings, calling the Maryland Democrat a "brutal bully” and his Baltimore district "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
The comments came in a series of three Twitter messages early Saturday. Cummings, a regular critic of Trump, earlier this month called the treatment of migrant children at detention facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border "government sponsored child abuse.”
"No human being would want to live there,” Trump said of Maryland’s 7th Congressional District, which includes about half of Baltimore, including most of the majority-black precincts, and parts of adjacent Howard and Baltimore counties, including a mix of urban, suburban and rural areas.
Conditions in Cummings’ district are "FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than those at the southern border, which "is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded,” Trump said.
Cummings, 68, who is black, has served in Congress since 1996 and is currently chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
At an oversight panel hearing on July 18 Cummings became emotional as he asked acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan about conditions for migrants held in border facilities.
"You feel like you’re doing a great job, right?” Cummings asked McAleenan. "What does that mean? What does that mean? When a child is sitting in their own feces, can’t take a shower?” he continued. "Come on man. What’s that about? None of us would have our children in that position. They are human beings.”
The immediate trigger for Trump’s comments was unclear, but less than an hour before the tweets Fox & Friends, a morning television show the president is known to watch, aired a segment on Cummings and his Congressional district.
While Trump has been critical of many Democrats and others, some of his harshest comments have been aimed at minority lawmakers. That includes the so-called Squad of four first-term female congresswomen, and Representative Maxine Waters of California, whom the president has repeatedly called "low IQ” on Twitter and in campaign rallies.
