House Democrat knocks Trump’s Cummings tweet: ‘This guy is a terrible, terrible human being’

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) hammered President Trump’s tweet saying that a break-in at the Baltimore home of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), one of the administration’s chief critics, was “really bad news” and “too bad.”

“Come on. This guy is a terrible, terrible human being. And he’s unfortunately the president of the United States,” Meeks, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on CNN Friday night.

“It’s clearly that he was doing a wise guy tweet about Elijah Cummings,” Meeks added.

“This guy is a terrible, terrible human being, and he’s unfortunately the President of the United States.” – Rep. Gregory Meeks says President Trump’s response to a break-in at Rep. Elijah Cummings’ home was clearly a “wise guy tweet” https://t.co/kFOoilVmRP pic.twitter.com/30tG1XmXbe

— CNN (@CNN) August 3, 2019

The Democrat weighed in after Trump on Friday insisted that he was not making a joke at Cummings’s expense with his tweet about the burglary, a remark that drew accusations that he was trying to embarrass the Maryland Democrat.{mosads}

Trump’s tweet about the burglary came after a dozen tweets hammering Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, accusing him of being a “brutal bully” and saying his district, which includes parts of West Baltimore, is “rat and rodent infested” and a “very dangerous & filthy place” where “no human being would want to live.”

Cummings has spoken out against the president repeatedly on various issues, most recently likening his hard-line immigration policies to “child abuse,” and he has pursued aggressive investigations into the Trump administration.

“He was trying to perpetuate what he was saying previously,” Meeks said of Trump. “It’s clear what he’s doing, and unfortunately too many people are becoming desensitized because this is what he does.”

“This president talks about certain people, black and brown people in particular, in a certain way. I can give you some white communities that are poor and crime-infested in those areas. He would never, he has never spoke about those communities in that way. He only directs that type of language to certain people who happen to be black and brown,” Meeks added.

Trump’s broadsides against Baltimore echo similar remarks he made before his inauguration about civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis’s (D-Ga.) Atlanta-area district, which he called “crime infested,” leading many to suggest the president has a certain view of districts represented by minority lawmakers.

He also sparked bipartisan criticism last month when he said four progressive congresswomen of color should go back to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Three of the four women were born in the U.S., and all are citizens.