Donald Trump has spent days waging a one-sided war on Rep. Elijah Cummings, with a particular focus on portraying Cummings’ city of Baltimore as an American hellhole.
So on Friday, the president took his attacks to a sinister new level, tweeting “Too bad!” about a reported burglary at Cummings’ West Baltimore home last weekend.
Baltimore police are investigating the break-in, which reportedly took place shortly before 4 a.m. on Saturday—hours before Trump launched his first broadside on Cummings, calling him a “brutal bully” and his hometown a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Most recently, Trump plainly accused Cummings of extreme corruption, claiming without any evidence that the congressman had stolen “billions” in federal money meant for the city.
Shortly after Trump’s tweet, Cummings released a short statement about the break-in:
Trump’s brand is crossing lines of decorum and decency with impunity. But still, somehow even now, a war of words taking on a real-life dimension always feels like a sinister reminder that he can always take things still further.
Update, 4:27 p.m. ET: Speaking with reporters, Trump said his tweet about the break-in was “really not meant as a wise guy tweet.”