US President Donald Trump says residents of Baltimore ‘appreciate’ his insults about their ‘rat-infested’ city
- Trump said his attack on Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings and the city has helped him score political points with African-Americans
- He claimed residents in the majority-black city had thanked him for highlighting issues there
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, Trump said he would visit Baltimore “at the right time” and claimed he has helped himself politically with his relentless attacks on Cummings and the city that began with tweets over the weekend. Cummings has represented the majority-black Seventh Congressional District, which includes part of Baltimore, as well as parts of two neighbouring counties, since 1996.
African-Americans “love the job” he is doing and are “happy as hell” with his recent comments criticising Cummings and Baltimore, he said.
“The African American community is so thankful,” Trump said as he prepared to head to a commemoration in Jamestown, Virginia, the birthplace of representative government in the United States. “They’ve called me and said finally someone is telling the truth.”
“Those people are living in hell in Baltimore,” Trump added. “They really appreciate what I’m doing, and they’ve let me know it.”