Baltimore Mayor To Trump: Get Off Twitter And Help My City If You Care

“If you want to help us, help us. Don’t talk about us," Jack Young said.
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Baltimore Mayor Jack Young slammed President Donald Trump’s repeated Twitter attacks on the city and its conditions, suggesting he focus less on his social media insults and more on allocating federal assistance to communities in need.

“If you want to help us, help us. Don’t talk about us. Send the resources that we need to rebuild America,” Young, a Democrat, said on CNN on Monday. “He’s talking about he wants to make America great again. Put the money in the cities that need it the most, and that way you can make America great again.”

On Saturday, Trump began attacking Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chair of the House Oversight Committee and a prominent opponent of the president, who recently challenged his administration on its treatment of migrants at the southern border.

In a relentless stream of tweets, Trump derided the congressman as a “brutal bully” and mocked his majority-black Baltimore district as a “rodent infested mess.”

The president appeared to be taking aim at remarks Cummings made earlier this month during a hearing in which he pressed acting Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan on the squalid and inhumane conditions of migrant detention facilities. Last weekend, Trump claimed that Cummings’ “district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than the border facilities.

Young joined other lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in calling the tweets part of the presidents “pattern” of attacks on people of color.

“He should be uniting this country instead of racially dividing us,” the mayor said, calling Trump’s online behavior “childish.”

Young went on to say that Baltimore’s struggles have been exacerbated by a lack of financial resources.

“We have our challenges just like any major city in America, and it’s because of the constant reduction in funding for cities like Baltimore.”

Young added that despite Trump’s criticisms of the city, the president hasn’t reached out to the mayor, who took office in May.

Following the start of Trump’s attacks on Cummings and Baltimore ― which continued into Monday ― Young released a statement condemning the insults as “completely unacceptable,” and calling the president “a disappointment to the people of Baltimore, our country, and to the world.”

“Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is hurtful and dangerous to the people he’s sworn to represent,” he said. “As the Mayor of Baltimore, I won’t stand for anyone, not even the alleged Leader of the Free World, attacking our great City or our representative to Congress.”

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