Fox News host Chris Wallace addressed President Trump’s recent tweets about Baltimore during a Sunday morning interview with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Trump tweeted yesterday that “Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.”
….As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming 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
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
“Nobody objects to the president defending his border policies, but this seems, Mick, to be the worst kind of … racial stereotyping. Black congressman, majority-black district,” Wallace said, reminding his audience of Trump’s recent tweets about the squad. “‘No human being would want to live there.’ Is he saying people that live in Baltimore are not human beings?”
Mulvaney maintained that Trump is accused of racism when he attacks people such as the squad of four liberal congresswomen, even when Pelosi escapes such accusations when she is critical of them. “He is attacking Mr. Cummings for saying things that are untrue about the border,” Mulvaney said, explaining how Trump is attacking ideas and not race.
Mulvaney then said that if he had cared more about impeachment than poverty in his district as a congressman, he would have been fired. “The president is right to raise that, it has absolutely zero to do with race,” he said.
Wallace responded, “You say it has zero to do with race. There is a clear pattern here, Mick.” Wallace then brought up similar statements Trump had made about Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis years ago.
“You’re spending too much time reading between the lines,” Mulvaney claimed.
“I’m not reading between the lines, I’m reading the lines,” Wallace responded.
Their back-and-forth echoed the exchange that took place between Wallace and presidential adviser Stephen Miller last Sunday, in which Wallace asserted that Trump was “stoking racial divisions” with his tweets demanding “the squad” go back to their home countries.
“I’ve never called any of his tweets racist, but there is no question he is stoking racial division,” Wallace said, to which Miller responded by saying that Trump’s statements come from his of “love for America.”
