CNN host Victor Blackwell got emotional during a segment about President Donald Trump's tweets about Rep. Elijah Cumming's (D-MD) district being a worse than the Southern Border.
"Infested. That's usually reserved for references to rodents and insects but we've seen the president invoke infestation to criticize lawmakers before," Blackwell said as a slide of Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Corez (D-NY), John Lewis (D-GA), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) came across the screen.
"See a pattern here? Just two weeks ago President Trump attacked four minority Congresswomen. 'Why don't they go back ... to the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.' Reminder: three of them were born here. All of them are American," Blackwell said.
The CNN host also referenced one of Trump's tweets from just after his inauguration, where he said Lewis' district was "crime infested."
"He's insulted many types of people, but when he tweets about 'infestation,' it's about black and brown people," Blackwell said of Trump.
He also mentioned various tweets from Trump in 2014, when Ebola was running rampant.
"The president says about Congressman Cummings' district..." an emotional Blackwell paused. "That no human would want to live there. You know who did live there, Mr. President? I did, from the day I was bought home from the hospital to the day I left for college. And a lot of people I care about still do."
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"There are challenges, no doubt, but people are proud of their community," Blackwell explained. "I don't want to sound self-righteous but people get up and go to work there. They care for their family. They love their children, who pledge allegiance to the flag, just like the people who live in districts of Congressmen who support you, sir. They are Americans too."
President Trump tweeted that Rep. Elijah Cummings’ district is a “rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) July 27, 2019
It’s @VictorBlackwell’s home district.
“When he tweets about infestation, it's about black and brown people,” Blackwell says. pic.twitter.com/YFCvPCFhFk
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