Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young (D) blasted President Trump’s comments about his city and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Saturday, calling the president a “disappointment to the people of Baltimore.”
“It’s 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,” Young said in a statement posted to Twitter.
“Mr. Trump, you are a disappointment to the people of Baltimore, our country, and to the world,” he added.
The mayor’s statement followed tweets in which Trump wrote that Cummings’s “Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than the U.S.-Mexico border, where Cummings has condemned the conditions.
Cummings’s district “is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place,” Trump added.{mosads}
He also called the Democrat a “brutal bully.”
Cummings responded to Trump with a tweet, writing, “Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors.”
“It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch,” Cummings added. “But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”
Days before Trump’s tweets, the House Oversight and Reform Committee authorized Cummings, its chairman, to subpoena records relating to an investigation into aides’ use of personal email and text applications for official business.
The tweets also followed recent posts by the president in which he said that four minority congresswomen should “go back” where they came from. The House voted earlier this month to condemn those remarks as racist.
Young became the city’s mayor after Catherine Pugh resigned from the position earlier this year amid scandals and investigations culminating in federal agents raiding City Hall and her home.