The Trump administration proposed cutting funding for Baltimore’s main rat extermination program — right before President Trump tweeted that parts of Baltimore were a “rat and rodent infested mess,” the Baltimore Sun reports.
House GOP Plans Annual Retreat In Baltimore
“President Trump on Saturday called Baltimore a ‘very dangerous & filthy place’ and suggested that Democratic politicians, including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), had made the city all but uninhabitable,” the Washington Post reports.
“Leaders of Trump’s party appear to disagree: House Republicans have scheduled their yearly policy retreat for a downtown Baltimore hotel in September… That could present an uncomfortable situation for Trump, as sitting presidents customarily speak each year at their party’s House retreat.”
Trump Claimed He Would ‘Fix’ Baltimore In 2015
“Four years ago, in the aftermath of rioting in Baltimore, Donald Trump criticized then-President Obama for not doing enough to address problems in the city and claimed that ‘I would fix it fast!’ if he were president,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s 2015 tweets have resurfaced in the wake of his derogatory tweets over the weekend aimed at the city of more than 600,000 and at Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), whose district includes part of Baltimore.”
FBI Raids Home of Baltimore Mayor
FBI and IRS agents raided Baltimore’s City Hall and the home of Mayor Catherine Pugh (D), the Baltimore Sun reports.
CNN: “Pugh, a Democrat, has taken a leave of absence amid a scandal over the sale of a children’s book she authored. While she was a board member of the University of Maryland Medical System, the UMMS spent $500,000 to fund the purchase of some 100,000 books from Pugh’s company Healthy Holly LLC, a spokesman for the medical system has confirmed.”
Baltimore Removes Confederate Statues Overnight
“Confederate statues in Baltimore were removed from their bases overnight, as crews using heavy machinery loaded them onto flat bed trucks and hauled them away, an end to more than a year of indecision surrounding what to do with the memorials,” the Baltimore Sun reports.
Said Mayor Catherine Pugh: “It’s done. They needed to come down. My concern is for the safety and security of our people. We moved as quickly as we could.”
O’Malley Cuts Short Trip Due to Baltimore Riots
Martin O’Malley (D) “is cutting short a planned series of paid speeches in Ireland and returning home” to Baltimore, the Washington Post reports.
“The Democrat, who has been aggressively positioning himself for a White House bid, had been scheduled to give several speeches Tuesday and Wednesday in Dublin. He was in London on Monday to give another paid address. O’Malley served for seven years as Baltimore’s mayor before becoming governor of Maryland in 2007.”
