Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, defended Donald Trump’s attacks on Elijah Cummings’ district, which includes Baltimore, claiming the tweets were not racially motivated.
Mulvaney told Fox News on Sunday morning that the tweets had ‘absolutely zero to do with race,’ and instead were a reflection of the reality that the House Oversight chairman is spending more time focusing on impeaching Trump than helping those in his home district.
‘Look I was in Congress for six years,’ the acting chief of staff said. ‘If I had poverty in my district like they have in Baltimore, if I had crime in my district like they have in Chicago, if I had homelessness in my district like they have in San Francisco, and I spent all my time in Washington D.C. chasing down this Mueller investigation, this bizarre impeachment crusade, I’d get fired.’
‘And I think the president is right to raise that, it has absolutely zero to do with race,’ Mulvaney concluded.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney defended Donald Trump’s attacks against Elijah Cummings and his district, which is majority black, claiming they were not racially motivated comments
‘I think the president is right to raise that, it has absolutely zero to do with race,’ Mulvaney told Fox News on Sunday regarding attacks against both Cummings and the so-called ‘squad’
Donald Trump waged attacks on Cummings in a series of tweets the past few days, claiming the Oversight chairman’s district, which includes Baltimore, is ‘disgusting,’ ‘rodent infested’ and claiming that no human would want to live there
Cummings is the chairman of one of the House committees seeking to recommends the chamber begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.
In a string of tweets over the last few days, Trump has criticized Baltimore in an effort to illustrate that Cummings should be more focused on improving the situation for those in his district than further pursuing Robert Mueller’s Russia report.
The president called the U.S. city ‘disgusting’ and ‘rat and rodent infested,’ claiming Cummings has done little with his time in Congress to improve the situation for the city he represents.
‘So sad that Elijah Cummings has been able to do so little for the people of Baltimore,’ he tweeted Saturday, a few days after Mueller testified on Capitol Hill.
‘Statistically, Baltimore ranks last in almost every major category,’ he continued. ‘Cummings has done nothing but milk Baltimore dry, but the public is getting wise to the bad job that he is doing!’
Cummings is head of one of the House committees investigating Trump in an effort to potentially recommends the chamber vote on initiating impeachment proceedings against the president
Trump turned up his defenses on Sunday, firing back at Pelosi, who defend Cummings, saying,’ there is nothing wrong with bringing out the very obvious fact that Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district and the City of Baltimore’
Mulvaney also defended Trump’s attacks on four minority freshmen congresswomen, claiming that also was not racially motivated
The members of Congress said Trump telling them to ‘go back’ to their countries of origin was ‘racist’ and xenophobic. From left to right: Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Trump has received criticism for his attacks against members of congress being racially motivated, Cummings is a black representative and a majority of Baltimore, more than 60 per cent, are black or African American.
Mulvaney also defended Trump’s attacks on ‘the squad’ of four minority congresswomen, which has been chastised as a racist attack.
Trump told Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley to ‘go back’ and fix their countries of origin instead of trying to impose their progressive ideals in American politics.
The congresswomen responded by calling the president a ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobe’ and called for his immediate impeachment.
‘When the president attacks AOC plus three, when he attacks ‘the squad’ last week he gets accused of being racist,’ Mulvaney lamented on Fox Sunday morning. ‘When Nancy Pelosi does it a few days later, the left and many members of the media… come to Nancy’s defense, how it couldn’t possibly be racist, that she was simply attacking her ideas.
‘The president is doing the same,’ he claimed.
Mulvaney has been acting White House chief of staff since January 2, 2019, shortly after John Kelly stepped down from the position following several clashes with the president.
No former replacement has been appointed.