Republican Rep. Mark Meadows defended both President Trump and his Democratic colleague, Rep. Elijah Cummings, from charges of racism and urged for more civility between the two parties.
“I am friends with both men, President Trump and Chairman Cummings. I know both men well. Neither man is a racist. Period. Both love America,” Meadows said in a statement to Politico. “I think if we put aside partisanship with investigations we can find bipartisan solutions that will benefit not only Chairman Cummings’ district but the country as a whole.”
Meadows was responding to the brutal war of words between Trump and congressional Democrats after the president targeted Cummings and his Baltimore district, which Trump called “rat infested” and out of control with crime.
Trump called Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, “racist” and said he is more focused on harassing him and his administration than helping people who need their attention.
Cummings is leading a congressional investigation into conduct the several Trump administration officials, an effort the president has called “presidential harassment.”
Former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who is now a CNN analyst, read the statement live on the network. Santorum is friends with Meadows and claimed to have received the statement via text.
Meadows, also a member of the House Oversight Committee, is at once a longtime friend of Cummings and a vocal supporter of Trump.
“I’m committed to working to that end with both of them,” Meadows said.
During a contentious congressional hearing featuring former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused Meadows of being a racist after he defended diversity within the Trump administration.
Cummings stepped in and rebuked Tlaib’s assertion and struck her comment from the record, for which she later apologized.
