Cummings invites Trump to his city
BALTIMORE — Rep. Elijah E. Cummings took the high road Saturday, inviting President Trump and other Americans to visit Baltimore but declining to respond in kind to the barrage of presidential tweets and comments disparaging him and the majority-black city he has long represented.
“We are a great community,” Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, said in his first public remarks about the controversy as he participated in the midday opening of a small neighborhood park near his home.
Community leaders and residents gathered to cut the ribbon on a pocket of greenery and flowers, built from what had been a vacant lot often used as a dumping ground for trash.
“Come to Baltimore. Do not just criticize us, but come to Baltimore and I promise you, you will be welcomed,” he said.
Cummings said he doesn’t have time for those who criticize the city where he grew up but wants to hear from people willing to help make the community better. He noted the outpouring of support he has received including thousands of emails, and the presence at the event of community leaders.
He wore a hat and polo shirt of Under Armour, the popular apparel maker headquartered in Baltimore. Asked by reporters afterward whether there would be a meeting with Trump, he said he’d love to see him visit. “The president is welcome to our district,” he said.
Trump called the Baltimore district a “rat and rodent infested mess” and complained about Cummings, whose committee is investigating the administration. The president widened his criticism of other cities that he did not name but that he complained are run by Democrats. His comments were widely seen as a race-centered attack on big cities with minority populations.
The neighborhood in a historic part of West Baltimore offered another view of a city that struggled long before Trump’s disparaging tweets, a once-thriving seaport now beset by urban problems.
Leaders from the community spoke of the region’s history of segregation in housing and how that legacy affected neighborhoods.
Cummings recounted some of the city’s famous residents, including the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and scholar-author Ta-Nehisi Coates. He also gave a nod to his family’s history, his parents arriving from the South to build a better life for their children, and his ascent to law school and Congress.
To residents, especially young people, he said, “Let no one define you.”