Trump’s ‘not a racist, he just likes to exaggerate’

FACING growing accusations of racism for his incendiary tweets, President Donald Trump is seeking to deflect the criticism by labelling a leading black congressman as himself racist.

In the latest rhetorical shot at lawmakers of colour, Trump said his weekend comments referring to Republican Elijah Cummings’s majority-black Baltimore district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live” were not racist. Instead, Trump argued: “If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess.

“His radical ‘oversight’ is a joke!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.

After a weekend of attacks on Cummings, the son of former share croppers who rose to become the powerful chairperson of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Trump expanded his attacks yesterday to include a prominent Cummings defender, the Reverend Al Sharpton, who was travelling to Baltimore to hold a press conference in condemnation of the president.

“Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score,” Trump tweeted before the press conference, adding that the civil rights activist and MSNBC host “Hates Whites & Cops!”

Trump appeared to dig a deeper hole even as a top White House aide sought to dismiss the controversy by describing Trump’s comments as hyperbole.

Speaking in television interviews, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Trump was reacting in frustration to the Democrats’ unrelenting investigations and talk of impeachment. He said Trump swung hard at Cummings and his Baltimore district because he believes such Capitol Hill critics are neglecting serious problems back home in their zeal to unfairly undermine his presidency. “I understand that everything Donald Trump says is offensive to some people,” Mulvaney said. “The president is pushing back against what he sees as wrong. It’s how he’s done it in the past, and he’ll continue to do it in the future.”

Mulvaney, a former congressman, said he understood why some people could perceive Trump’s words as racist.

Mulvaney said Trump’s words were exaggerated for effect – “Does the president speak hyperbolically? Absolutely” – and meant to draw attention to Democratic-backed investigations of the Republican president and his team in Washington. “Instead of helping people back home, they’re focusing on scandal in Washington DC, which is the exact opposite of what they said they would do when they ran for election in 2018,” Mulvaney said, pointing at Democrats who now control the House.

He asserted that Trump’s barbs were a reaction to what the president considered to be inaccurate statements by Cummings. “When the president hears lies like that, he’s going to fight back,” Mulvaney said.

Trump’s tweets on Saturday also charged that Cummings’s district is “considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the US”.