Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young made it clear on Monday that if President Donald Trump thinks his city is so bad, he should send federal assistance instead of being “so interested in childish tweets.”
Over the weekend, Trump lashed out at Baltimore, calling the city “disgusting” and “rat and rodent-infested.” The blow was part of a larger attack on House Oversight Chairman and Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, according to CNN.
“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. His district is considered the Worst in the USA……,” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
“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,” the president added.
Young, for his part, wasn’t having it.
“If he really wants to, he needs to send us the federal assistance — not only to Baltimore, to cities around this country that are in the same situation that Baltimore is in — but he’s so interested in childish tweets,” Young told CNN‘s John Berman on New Day in response.
“I mean if you want to help us, help us. Don’t talk about it, send the resources we need to rebuild America. He’s talking about he wants to ‘make American great again.’ Put the money in the cities that need it the most and that way you can make America great again,” Young, who is a Democrat added.
Young added that the president has never even reached out to him since he took up the seat in early May after the former mayor Catherine Pugh resigned amidst a scandal.
“We have an aging infrastructure in the city of Baltimore, but for an unfunded mandate by the EPA for us to correct it and we have to constantly raise water rates on the poor people of the city of Baltimore,” Young pointed out, before making reference to one of Trump’s 2016 campaign promises. “He had a pledge that he was going to do infrastructure — we’re still waiting on that.”
As the president tweets have been consistently making news for the past few weeks – first with his attacks on the four Congresswomen of color known as the “Squad” – Young pointed out that this attack is just another pattern in the sequence of events.
“He’s the most powerful man on the face of the earth as President of the United States of America. And this is below the President to do these kinds of things. He should be uniting this country instead of racially dividing us,” Young said.