While addressing the feud between President Trump and Rep. Elijah Cummings, Sen. Kevin Cramer said he could consider himself a victim of racism if he wasn’t so unfazed by “snide” remarks about North Dakota.
Responding to claims Mr. Trump’s remarks on Mr. Cummings and the city of Baltimore were racist, the white North Dakota Republican said, according to NBC News, that because “members of Congress that have achieved high things” it doesn’t make them “very good victims.”
He added that it’s “always liberals that are claiming victimhood, and yet they’re paid the same as us, they have the same power as every other person that’s in Congress.”
“[Rep. Cummings] is not a victim of racism. He’s been given great privilege,” he said. “[T]he thing that’s offensive more than anything is that…the anti-Trump folks in Congress – use their positions to keep the weird impeachment thing alive,” he continued.
“I could be a victim of racism, but I don’t offend easily, I just don’t offend that easily,” Cramer said.
When a reporter asked “how could you be a victim of racism,” Mr. Cramer said sometimes he gets “snide” comments about being from North Dakota.
“Well, if somebody said something about being from North Dakota, every now and then I get a snicker about it, somebody will say something about North Dakota in some snide way, I don’t offend because I’m comfortable with where I come from, I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m comfortable with my own accomplishments and the accomplishments of our state,” Mr. Cramer said.
He also applauded one of his African American friends, Rep. David Scott, who “never plays victims neither.”
Mr. Cramer’s comments come after Mr. Trump attacked Baltimore in a tweetstorm Saturday as a “rat and rodent infested mess,” starting a feud with Mr. Cummings, Maryland Democrat and chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
The president added that if Democrats support “King Elijah’s Baltimore Fail, it will be a long road to 2020.”
When people called the president’s attacks racist, he doubled down Sunday on Twitter.
“There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself. Dems always play the race card when they are unable to win with facts. Shame!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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