Facing growing accusations of racism for his incendiary tweets, US President Donald Trump has himself labeled a leading black congressman racist.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that in the latest rhetorical shot at non-white lawmakers, Trump said his weekend comments referring to Rep. Elijah Cummings’ majority-black Baltimore district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live” were not racist. Instead, Trump argued, “if racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess.”

“His radical ‘oversight’ is a joke!” Trump tweeted Sunday.

“I understand that everything that Donald Trump says is offensive to some people,” Mulvaney said. But he added: “The president is pushing back against what he sees as wrong. It’s how he’s done it in the past, and he’ll continue to do it in the future.”

Mulvaney, a former congressman himself, said he understood why some people could perceive Trump’s words as racist.

US House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, at a hearing ahead of testimony by US President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on February 27, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)
Mulvaney said Trump’s words were exaggerated for effect — “Does the president speak hyperbolically? Absolutely” — and meant to draw attention to Democratic-backed investigations of the Republican president and his team in Washington.

“Instead of helping people back home, they’re focusing on scandal in Washington DC, which is the exact opposite of what they said they would do when they ran for election in 2018,” Mulvaney said, pointing at Democrats who now control the House.

He asserted that Trump’s barbs were a reaction to what the president considered to be inaccurate statements by Cummings about conditions in which children are being held in detention at the US-Mexico border.

At a hearing last week, Cummings accused a top administration official of wrongly calling reports of filthy, overcrowded border facilities “unsubstantiated.”