Donald Trump pummeled Baltimore years ago in a series of tweets — but back then he held Barack Obama responsible for the city’s crime, pointing out that he was an “African American president” and sarcastically referring to him as “great.”
Shortly after Freddie Gray died after sustaining injuries while being transported in a Baltimore police vehicle in 2015, Trump urged Obama in tweets to do what’s right and “bring both sides together” to aid the city. Or, Trump suggested, he himself could be dropped into Baltimore to “show Obama how it’s done” and “fix it fast.”
Now, suddenly, Trump no longer considers Baltimore the responsibility of the man in the White House. Rather, he’s put blame on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), whom Trump bizarrely blasted as a “racist” Sunday, for what the president called his “rodent-infested mess” of a district where “no human being would want to live.”
It was a different target, but another African American, four years ago:
Trump’s critics on Twitter are most captivated now by 2015 Trump’s vision of himself as a great white savior ready to be airlifted into Baltimore to save the day.
Trump lashed out at Cummings and his district, which encompasses much of Baltimore, after the congressman complained about inhumane conditions for detained immigrants along the southern border of the U.S.
But Trump has also indicated that he’s furious the House Oversight and Reform Committee, headed by Cummings, voted Thursday to authorize a subpoena for all work-related texts and emails sent and received on personal accounts by his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Both Ivanka Trump and Kushner have admitted to using personal accounts for work messages.
The president has repeatedly slammed Hillary Clinton for using a personal server for work-related emails when she was secretary of state, which triggered Trump-encouraged chants of “lock her up” at his 2016 campaign rallies. Trump on Saturday accused Cummings in a tweet of now spending “all of his time trying to hurt innocent people through ‘Oversight.’”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated Cummings’ party affiliation.