Trump rejects racism charge, throws it at black lawmaker

By Lesley Wroughton

 

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 Census documents on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 12, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Sunday said disparaging comments he made about a prominent African-American lawmaker and his Baltimore district were not racist and, without citing any evidence for his claim, he called the congressman a racist.

 

"If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership," Trump said in a tweet.

 

Trump had attacked Cummings, a Democrat in the House of Representatives who has long been a champion for civil rights, in a series of tweets on Saturday, after the lawmaker criticized conditions at U.S. facilities housing migrants along the Mexican border.

 

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday said he understood why the president's attacks on a predominately African-American Congressional district could be perceived as racist, but said the insults toward Baltimore were not about race. Zachary Goelman reports.

 

In a post on Twitter, Trump called Cummings' district "disgusting, rat and rodent infested."

 

"No human being would want to live there," he said.

 

The tweets drew pointed responses from Democrats, who said the comments were racist, a charge Trump denied on Sunday.

 

"There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself," he said in a series of posts on Twitter.

 

Cummings' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's latest tweets. In a tweet on Saturday responding to Trump's initial barrage, Cummings said: "Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbours. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents."

 

Cummings is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which voted 23-16 along party lines on Thursday to issue subpoenas to White House officials, including Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner as part of a probe into possible violations of government record-keeping laws.

 

In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday that he understood why Trump's comments could be perceived as racist but he said the president was speaking hyperbolically.

 

Trump's remarks echoed a similar attack he made in January 2017 against another black lawmaker and icon of the civil rights movement, John Lewis.

 

He also recently told four minority women lawmakers to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came from."

 

"I absolutely think it's important to call it out for what it is, which is racism," Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro told "Face the Nation."

 

"There's a pattern here," he added. "That's how he thinks he won in 2016 and that's how he thinks he's going to win in 2020."

 

Cummings represents Maryland's 7th congressional district, which according to 2010 census data was 54.6% black, had a median household income of $51,018, a figure above the median income for the nation as a whole.

 

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Andrea Ricci and Chris Reese)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-29

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If it quacks like a duck looks like a duck acts like a (rasist)pretty good chance he’s racist just no excuse Pathetic definitely unpresidential 

 

 

"President Trump is getting a distorted view of the country from what he sees on the conservative talk show "Fox & Friends. He was set off by a segment on the 6 am hour of "Fox & Friends Weekend. Trump digested what he heard on Fox and ran with it, tweeting about Cummings and Baltimore an hour later"

"The President saw my work. This just made my day."

trump once more shows he is a disgraceful prejudiced little man. 

 

As president he is an embarrassment. 

 

As an individual he is pathetic, narcissistic man child, with all the charm is a burning sack of faeces. 

Every time that idiot makes an idiot statement, his minions and defenders have to go on TV to lie that he’s either misunderstood or he was joking. So pathetic.

Quote

In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday that he understood why Trump's comments could be perceived as racist but he said the president was speaking hyperbolically.

So even the White House is admitting it was a racist comment. Only here on TVF these comments will be considered 'nothing racist, he doesn't have a racist bone in his body'.

Quote

"There's a pattern here," he added. "That's how he thinks he won in 2016 and that's how he thinks he's going to win in 2020."

Very true. He is speaking to his 35% base, who will see racist remarks like this as very true and justified, at the same time putting the very diverse Democratic Party (from social democrats and even further 'left' to tradition republican points of view) under pressure, while the Republican Party remains united, after having moved much further to the right, behind Trump.

He won previous time by division and is trying to do that again.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Cummings said: "Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbours. 

He may want to 'fight' more vigorously, that inner city is a dangerous crime infested dump and his 'home/residence' is tucked safely far away.

Yawn, another out of touch elitist political puppet.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

the president was speaking hyperbolically.

Talking <deleted>?

This is hogwash.

Do you want to see the reality of what the inner cities of the USA have become?

Take a trip on AMTRAK from New York to Washington, DC.

The residential areas of Newark, Trenton, Camden, Philadelphia and Baltimore have all become urban jungles.

That isn't immediately seen by motorists on the interstate highways, but the view from the train gives you a look behind the façade that is truly horrendous.

Apparently Bernie Sanders made several derogatory comments about Baltimore during a campaign speech in 2015 calling it a third world city.

Nobody calls a Democrat a racist even though they're by far the worst of the lot.

36 minutes ago, Lucius verus said:

Apparently Bernie Sanders made several derogatory comments about Baltimore during a campaign speech in 2015 calling it a third world city.

Nobody calls a Democrat a racist even though they're by far the worst of the lot.

Anybody who actually looks in detail at what Sanders said can see the difference. 

"But anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you were in a wealthy nation, you would think that you were in a Third World country," Sanders says in the clip from the press conference.

"But today what we're talking about is a community in which half of the people don't have jobs. We're talking about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable. "

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-digs-up-2015-bernie-sanders-quote-criticizing-baltimore-2019-7

Clearly his remarks were about the failures of the system in the USA. Genuine populism.

 

 

facts aren't racist. 

18 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Anybody who actually looks in detail at what Sanders said can see the difference. 

"But anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you were in a wealthy nation, you would think that you were in a Third World country," Sanders says in the clip from the press conference.

"But today what we're talking about is a community in which half of the people don't have jobs. We're talking about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable. "

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-digs-up-2015-bernie-sanders-quote-criticizing-baltimore-2019-7

Clearly his remarks were about the failures of the system in the USA. Genuine populism.

 

 

If Trump made those comments he would be labelled a racist.

I dislike his dreadful children more

than him but the Democrats are their worst own enemy.

They never stop playing the race card and Trump is thrashing them because he's a natural conman.

Democrats are pretenders.

Of course if Obama had said the same about a useless white person that would not have been 'racist Time to stop this nonsense and pretending to be victims of something that hardly exists in the USA any longer.

38 minutes ago, daoyai said:

facts aren't racist. 

Well, the day that Trump starts talking in the same about the awful conditions and afflictions affecting some rural congressional district mostly populated by whites, is the day I'll start believing he's not a racist. 

1 minute ago, bristolboy said:

Well, the day that Trump starts talking in the same about the awful conditions and afflictions affecting some rural congressional district mostly populated by whites, is the day I'll start believing he's not a racist. 

He often speaks out on the opioid crisis and meth epidemic decimating those "white" rural areas... but when 6% of the population is responsible for 52% of homicides (mostly in urban slums) only real racists can ignore that inconvenient fact. ... yea the long term entrenched "leaders" of those districts need to be called out.

3 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

trump once more shows he is a disgraceful prejudiced little man. 

 

As president he is an embarrassment. 

 

As an individual he is pathetic, narcissistic man child, with all the charm is a burning sack of faeces. 

And these are his best qualities.

3 minutes ago, daoyai said:

He often speaks out on the opioid crisis and meth epidemic decimating those "white" rural areas... but when 6% of the population is responsible for 52% of homicides (mostly in urban slums) only real racists can ignore that inconvenient fact. ... yea the long term entrenched "leaders" of those districts need to be called out.

 

"He often speaks out" does he? Does he talk about the squalor in which rural whites live like this: 

"disgusting, rat and rodent infested.""No human being would want to live there," he said.

In fact he doesn't talk about it at all. 

And you notice how he and apparently you think of opiod and meth use? It's an "epidemic". Like it was the plague or something. Gosh, where does the right-wing talk about personal responsibility go when it comes to white people? You sound like liberals. I remember when opiods were afflicting the black community. Not so much of the kind of language then coming from the right. Hmmm...

 

Didn't see Trump mention the murder rate. And as for blaming the leaders...he blamed Elijah Cummngs who criticized him. Haven't seen him blame any white congressman of impoverished rural districts for the conditions there. Oh wait, it's not their fault. I mean what can they do in the face of an "epidemic" of drug use?

 

3 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

trump once more shows he is a disgraceful prejudiced little man. 

 

As president he is an embarrassment. 

 

As an individual he is pathetic, narcissistic man child, with all the charm is a burning sack of faeces. 

Absolute rubbish!  You're being far too complimentary.

4 hours ago, Tug said:

If it quacks like a duck looks like a duck acts like a (rasist)pretty good chance he’s racist just no excuse Pathetic definitely unpresidential 

 

 

I do agree. Here is why...

 

These recent comments from the greatest president ever (joking-puke) are not actually racist, however, he has a history before his presidency of racist quotes that can't be defended. Yet, you get Drump supporters saying he is not a racist. Talk about being a sucker for a previous TV show host, mainstream rhetoric and a facade of patriotic jingoism.

 

Liberals love the Race Card , its the only one they have


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1 minute ago, alan grice said:

Liberals love the Race Card , its the only one they have


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That's why Democrats had a landslide in the House in 2018, I thought the issue was healthcare. Apparently, not.

2 hours ago, Lucius verus said:

Apparently Bernie Sanders made several derogatory comments about Baltimore during a campaign speech in 2015 calling it a third world city.

Nobody calls a Democrat a racist even though they're by far the worst of the lot.

Trump is no racist. He was merely calling a spade a spade (no pun intended) as these American cities run by Democrats are rat ???? infested cholera breeding grounds. 

2 minutes ago, Boon Mee said:

Trump is no racist. He was merely calling a spade a spade (no pun intended) as these American cities run by Democrats are rat ???? infested cholera breeding grounds. 

Must have missed news of those cholera epidemics. Can you furnish a link for that?

11 minutes ago, alan grice said:

Liberals love the Race Card , its the only one they have


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Black/White ..no not the race card, I'm talking about...Talking about your views on constructive criticism learned from the tv box. See my post right before yours. ???? Drump has a history of quotes that are clearly racist, just search for them. Prior to presidency. During presidency many are not racist but do have some racist undertones or tropes. Frankly, if you cant see that, my question to you is what would you have thought about such comments before the rich guy from NY duped his way into the presidency based on dividing the country, demonizing various issues/peoples and getting free coverage from liberal media. Before Trump was around.

 

I do realize some people need a 'hero' also, so hopefully this one cant fly when he goes off the deep end..????MAGA

Instead of people just seeing racism everywhere, try this video from a black American point of view.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71ZXEAc6pWs

Trump got 8% of the Afro American vote in 2116 will be lucky to get 1% in 2020. When he loses it will be everybody elses fault not his.

4 hours ago, stevenl said:

Quote

In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday that he understood why Trump's comments could be perceived as racist but he said the president was speaking hyperbolically.

So even the White House is admitting it was a racist comment. Only here on TVF these comments will be considered 'nothing racist, he doesn't have a racist bone in his body'.

No, the White House isn't admitting it was a racist comment, I think you need to go and look up the word "perceived" in the dictionary

Mr. Trump was condemning a dem congressman,who is doing nothing for his constituents, except for the one's who want Mr. Trump impeached. That seems more important lol

19 minutes ago, Paul Henry said:

Trump got 8% of the Afro American vote in 2116 will be lucky to get 1% in 2020. When he loses it will be everybody elses fault not his.

The following black YouTubers and their millions of subscribers might disagree with you, but hey, you probably know best.

ABL

Amazing Lucas

Candice Owens

Adventist Hermes

Jessie Lee Peterson

Tree of Logic

Larry Elder

Brandon Tatum

Diamond & Silk

Some Black Guy

Jon Miller

Jericho Green

Hodge Twins

 

They are the ones I can remember. Sure there are more.