
Washington - The Baltimore Sun newspaper published a scathing editorial on Sunday against President Donald Trump, defending conditions in an urban district of the eastern US city that Trump had attacked, as well as the US lawmaker who represents the district.
The daily newspaper, in an editorial titled "Better to have a few rats than to be one," pointed to the district's landmarks and a median income above the national average. The US president on Saturday called the district a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and said "no human being would want to live there".
The newspaper's editorial board said that, while it did not wish to "sink to name-calling", it would "tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office" that it's "better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one."
The editorial said that Trump sees attacking African American members of Congress as good politics as it "warms the cockles of the white supremacists who love him." The president was not fooling most Americans into believing "he's even slightly competent," it added.
Trump touched off the latest racially charged round of accusations with a series of tweets on Saturday in which he said Cummings had done little to help his district in more than 20 years in office.