WASHINGTON, July 30 — US President Donald Trump has unleashed a vitriolic barrage in recent weeks against fierce adversaries, and most of them are minorities.
Each has accused Trump of seeking to sow discord in the country while rallying his base of largely white male conservatives ahead of the 2020 elections.
Trump has a reputation for punching back hard, then doubling down as his critics cry foul. Here is a look at those recently targeted by the president.
‘Con man’ Al Sharpton
The outspoken and controversial Reverend Al Sharpton has been a fixture in the African-American community for 30 years, rising from an impassioned supporter of black causes in New York to influential civil rights activist.
When he announced yesterday he would be visiting Baltimore to defend the majority-black east coast city that Trump recently attacked as “rat and rodent infested,” the president pounced.
“Al is a con man, a troublemaker,” Trump, who has known Sharpton for decades, boomed on Twitter. “Hates Whites & Cops!”
Sharpton, now 64, made a name for himself as a voice for the disaffected, often marching in support of victims of police brutality. He was occasionally jailed for his activism.
As his stature grew, he found himself accused of misusing funds, ran into tax trouble, and faced accusations of stoking racial divisions.
He has tempered his approach in recent years, and began hosting a cable television show in 2011, but he remains provocative.
Yesterday he fired back at the president, saying “I make trouble for bigots,” and that Trump “has a particular venom for blacks.”
‘Racist’ Elijah Cummings
Last weekend saw the president launch an ugly attack on Elijah Cummings, a well-liked and respected 23-year veteran of Congress.
Cummings, who is black, is a high-profile Trump critic in Congress where he chairs the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting investigations of Trump and his administration.
He was born and raised in Baltimore, and represents the Maryland city just 72 kilometres northeast of the White House.
On Sunday, in language that Democrats immediately decried as racist, Trump branded Cummings’s congressional district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
Trump pressed on, blasting Cummings himself as “racist,” and saying “his radical ‘oversight’ is a joke!”
Cummings, 68, prides himself on being an efficient, respectful lawmaker, but he is also prone to passionate outbursts.
He has largely opted to stay above the fray over Trump’s attacks, tweeting Sunday: “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbours.”
‘Anti-Israel’ squad
Trump’s weeks-long racially charged tweet storms began mid-month with his startling call for four ethnic minority congresswoman — all US citizens — to “go back” to other countries if they don’t like America.
Trump’s demeaning tweets, in which he assailed the lawmakers as “a bunch of Communists” who “hate” Israel and America, were aimed at the so-called squad.
The powerful, progressive first-term lawmakers are Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first two female Muslim members of Congress, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley.
Trump has taken particular issue with Omar, a Somali refugee who found herself in hot water this year when she suggested money is why so many US politicians support Israel.
Ocasio-Cortez is a populist firebrand who introduced the Green New Deal, which sets out drastic measures to cut carbon emissions. Trump branded it a socialist takeover of the economy.
Tlaib made waves when she used crude language to describe her desire to impeach Trump, while Pressley raised eyebrows for warning that the Democratic Party did not need “any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”
Each has rebuked the president for his tweets. — AFP
