President Trump tweeted a video Wednesday of Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings calling his own district “drug-infested” back in 1999.
Trump called Cummings a “brutal bully” and “racist” last weekend, while describing his majority-black district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” which he has since defended. The president has faced accusations of racism for the attacks, namely the use of the word “infested.”
The president tweeted the clip and captioned it, “The Radical Left Dems went after me for using the words ‘drug-infested’ concerning Baltimore. Take a look at Elijah C.”
The Radical Left Dems went after me for using the words “drug-infested” concerning Baltimore. Take a look at Elijah C. pic.twitter.com/E08ngbcw3d
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2019
“This morning I left my community of Baltimore a drug-infested area, where a lot of the drugs we’re talking about today have already taken the lives of so many children. The same children that I watched 14 or 15 years ago as they grew up, now walking around like zombies,” Cummings said in the video. “This is 40 miles away from here.”
The clip was from a hearing on the “narcotics threat from Columbia” that was held by a House reform subcommittee on Aug. 6, 1999, according to the New York Post.
[Read more: Elijah Cummings declines Trump administration invitation to tour Baltimore housing facility]
