Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) does not bear all the responsibility for problems that plague Maryland’s largest city and called on Congress and the Trump administration to provide more assistance.
“I don’t think you can put all the blame in Baltimore City on Elijah Cummings, but he could do more to help,” Hogan (R) told Fox News in his first television interview since President Trump launched harsh attacks on Baltimore and Cummings.
A spokesman for Cummings could not be immediately reached for comment.
“Everything we’ve been trying to do at the state level, I’d love to have more help from the White House and from the Congress to help the state help the city,” said Hogan, who was widely criticized by state residents and Democratic officials for his initial, tepid response to Trump’s tweets. “It’s really a city problem, but they can’t do it by themselves.”
[Freddie Gray’s death launched a huge effort to heal Baltimore. It wasn’t enough.]
Trump lashed out starting Saturday at Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and his majority-black congressional district, tweeting that “no human being would want to live” there.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) (Al Drago/Bloomberg News)
The president blamed Cummings for problems in Baltimore, saying, “he’s had a very iron hand on it.”
Hogan, who briefly considered challenging Trump in 2020, has not held any public events in Maryland this week. He returned from Utah on Sunday, after taking the helm of the National Governors Association, and went to New York Thursday for a series of television interviews.
On Monday, he said during a radio interview that he thought Trump’s tweets were “outrageous and inappropriate.” He echoed that criticism Thursday, saying he didn’t “think angry attacks on Twitter were appropriate.”
Hogan said Thursday that he thinks the uproar Trump sparked could lead to changes for a city that has struggled with poverty and inequity for generations.
“I think that could be the silver lining,” Hogan said. “I just believe we ought to be focusing on problems and the solutions. . . . I think it’s good that we’re paying attention to the problems in Baltimore. I’d like everybody from the president, the administration and Congress to work with us at the state level and with the folks in Baltimore City.”
Read more:
Bigoted and racist’: Al Sharpton joins chorus of outrage at Trump’s attacks on Baltimore
Freddie Gray’s death launched a huge effort to heal Baltimore. It wasn’t enough.
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