Swalwell: Criticizing Baltimore Akin to ‘Trashing America’

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Allison Shelley/Getty Images/AFP
Hannah Knudsen

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) joined the left-wing pile-on of President Trump over his criticism of Rep. Elijah Cummings’ (D-MD) Baltimore district and proclaimed that drawing attention to the flaws of the city is akin to “trashing America.”

Trump issued a sharp criticism of Cummings on Saturday, lambasting him for “screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border” when his Baltimore district is “far worse and more dangerous,” calling it a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” He also called for an investigation into the funds funneled to Cummings’ district.

Swalwell, the California lawmaker who ran a short-lived presidential campaign, joined the collective outrage Saturday evening, calling critics of Baltimore “haters” who are “trashing America” by pointing out the city’s well-documented flaws.

“Hey haters, Baltimore is in America. If you’re defending @realDonaldTrump by pointing out what you think are flaws of Baltimore, you are trashing America,” he tweeted.

“America is not just the places you like or look like you. It’s the places you’ve never seen & the people you’ve never met,” he added.

However, the president’s critiques were not rooted in race or hatred of a specific area. The city’s issues have been well-documented for years.

According to FBI data, Baltimore had “the worst murder rate of all U.S. big cities in 2017.”

As Breitbart News reported:

Chicago gets a lot of press for its high murder rate and the city did, indeed, have far more murders than Baltimore in 2017. But Chicago is also far larger than Baltimore (about 3 million for Chicago versus 615,000 for Baltimore), so on a per capita basis, Maryland’s largest metropolis was far more dangerous for its citizens than even the blood-soaked Windy City.

CBS Baltimore noted that Baltimore’s 342 homicides resulted in a homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people of cities with more than 500,000 citizens.

Last year marked the “fourth year in a row where the dangerous city’s murder rate passed the 300-mark,” Breitbart News reported.

Additionally, Baltimore’s 2018 homicide rate was higher than Honduras and “nearly the same as in El Salvador,” with a rate of “51 per 100,000 residents,” Breitbart News added.

Gun violence continues to be a problem in the city, despite its gun control efforts. Baltimore Police Deputy Commissioner Danny Murphy was robbed at gunpoint last week.

Last month, Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young spoke at an anti-gun violence event – “Bmore United” – and floated the idea of a public boxing ring to curb potentially violent feuds.

“Gun violence has been plaguing this city for the last ten years,” Young said. “The murder rate in this city and non-fatal shootings have increased. I’m not happy with it and neither should the citizens of Baltimore.”

“If they want to really settle them, we can have them down at the Civic Center, put a boxing ring up, let them go and box it out, those kind of things,” Young continued. “[May] the best man win, and the beef should be over.”

“Those are some kinds of things I’m thinking about, and hoping that we can get these people to put these guns down,” he added.

One Baltimore resident responded to Trump’s remarks in a now-viral video, praising the president’s assessment of Cummings.

“Trump is not racist … I’m glad he put [Cummings] on blast,” she said. “The rats just didn’t come. These houses just didn’t get torn down, they’ve been like this.”

She added that Cummings is “worried more about them [illegal aliens] than his own people.”

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