Trump again disparaged Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., whom he has accused in recent days of running a “disgusting” congressional district.
“Baltimore is an example of what corrupt government leads to,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for the event in Virginia. “I feel so sorry for the people of Baltimore, and if they ask me, we will get involved.”
Trump offered no evidence of corruption nor did he explain on what he based such an accusation. But he made clear he was unwilling to back down in a continuing war of words that has aggravated racial tensions and left many of his own advisers concerned that he was turning off suburban voters who could be key to his reelection next year.
Facing questions about his apparent willingness to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines in recent days, Trump insisted that he was the “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.”
This line of self-defense came a day after the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents elected members of the House of Delegates and state Senate, said in a statement that its members cannot “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform.
“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” make him “ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion, and opportunity.’”
The lawmakers’ protest came as Trump has employed racist tropes repeatedly in recent weeks. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In the last several days, he has repeatedly assailed Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites & Cops.”
Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has emerged as a major foil for the president as his panel presses investigations into Trump’s administration. Last week, the committee authorized Cummings to subpoena work-related emails and text messages on personal devices of White House officials, including Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law.
“I think that Rep. Cummings should take his oversight committee and start doing oversight on Baltimore,” Trump said.
Aides said that the move last week riled Trump and helped fuel the anger on display since Saturday. The president has also bristled at criticism from Cummings of how detained migrants are being treated at the border, saying that the lawmaker should first worry about what Trump called the dismal conditions in his own district.
As he took questions for over 10 minutes Tuesday morning, Trump appeared not to know that a boycott was in place, saying he would be “shocked” if opponents of color were declining to attend the event.
“If that’s the case, they’re fighting against their people,” Trump said, as he claimed that his administration had been receiving calls nonstop praising his comments on Baltimore. “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy about what a president has done.”
The ceremony Tuesday at the Jamestown Settlement Museum is meant to mark the first meeting of elected legislators in the new world. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come.
The Tuesday event already was fraught for African American lawmakers because in those days only white male property holders were eligible to vote. Moreover, this year also represents the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to the colonies that would later become the United States.
The caucus is holding alternative events in Richmond, including a wreath-laying at the Virginia State Capitol to honor African American lawmakers who served after the Civil War. The idea was to focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.
But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African American statewide elected official, will attend Tuesday’s ceremony, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”
In an essay posted on Medium, he said, “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”
Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes on his personal page. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was either man.
The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.
On Tuesday, Trump dismissed questions about whether he was hurting himself politically by relentlessly fueling racial tensions in recent days.
“I think I’m helping myself,” Trump said. “These people are living in hell in Baltimore.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.