Almost a week after President Trump launched a series of attacks against Representative Elijah Cummings and his district, Trump, as he is wont to do, took things a stomach-turning step further, appearing to gloat about a recent break-in at Cummings’s house in Baltimore.
The robbery was not connected to Trump’s initial tweets about the congressman, who chairs the House Oversight Committee; Cummings said in a statement: “An individual attempted to gain entry into my residence at approximately 3:40 AM on Saturday, July 27 … I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house.” It’s unclear if anything was stolen.
Later that morning, Trump, who had apparently taken issue with Cummings’s questioning of his acting secretary of Homeland Security, among other things, launched a series of tweets insulting the congressman and Baltimore in starkly racial terms.
His attacks on Cummings — the latest in a long line that have connected people of color with vermin — have continued all week.
At a rally on Thursday night, Trump compared Baltimore’s crime rate with Afghanistan’s.
Cummings responded to Trump’s initial comments, tweeting, “It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.” Since then, he has largely stayed above the fray, but many Democrats have come to his defense. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, has called Trump’s tweets racist.
