President Donald Trump on Monday renewed attacks against Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings in a series of tweets in which he added presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to the mix.
The president has faced criticism for tweets from the weekend that referred to Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Trump noted that Sanders had previously described the city of Baltimore as a “third world country,” and said that he should face similar criticism for his comments.
“Crazy Bernie Sanders recently equated the City of Baltimore to a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!” Trump tweeted on Monday. “Based on that statement, I assume that Bernie must now be labeled a Racist, just as a Republican would if he used that term and standard!”
In a follow-up tweet, the president noted that he believed Baltimore could be improved, though not under the leadership of Cummings, who the president called “King Cummings.” Trump invited city leaders to contact him if they were interested in his help.
The president’s re-election campaign sent out a video of Sanders’ 2015 comments on Sunday prior to Trump’s tweets on Monday.
In the clip, the self-described Democratic Socialist spoke about Baltimore’s unemployment, trouble with its public schools and uninhabitable buildings in the city.
“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 is heard saying in a clip from a press conference for his 2015 campaign for president.
As Business Insider noted, the difference in public reaction could stem from the fact that Sanders’ comments were made following a visit to the city where he met with residents, whereas the president’s sentiments were seen more as a political attack against Cummings. As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Cummings has been responsible for many of the House’s investigations into the president.
Baltimore mayor says Trump should send federal assistance rather than tweeting https://t.co/uH4GwNF3y6 pic.twitter.com/1is7YRpR6q
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 29, 2019
The committee last week announced it would subpoena White House work communications that were sent via personal email accounts and from personal cellphones, The Washington Post reported.
The president has been called racist for his tweets on Saturday in which Trump lambasted Cummings over the state of his Baltimore, Maryland district. The district, which is about 40 miles north of Washington, had the highest homicide rate out of all major U.S. cities in 2017, just ahead of Detroit, per a report from The Baltimore Sun last year.
Many — including Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi — were quick to condemn the president’s tweet. A CNN anchor teared up Saturday when explaining the president’s tweet, per a previous report from The Inquisitr . He presented a history of tweets in which Trump used similar language. Tweets where the president used the word “infestation” were used to describe communities with a high percentage of minorities.
The president’s attack on Sanders comes at a time when the Democrat polls nationally in second place in the Democratic Party’s race to beat Trump in 2020. According to data from RealClearPolitics , Sanders polls behind former Vice President Joe Biden.