President Donald Trump was speaking hyperbolically when he lashed out at a prominent African-American lawmaker by calling his district “disgusting, rat and rodent infested,” his acting chief of staff said on Sunday, denying the comments were racist. Trump had attacked U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a champion for civil rights, in a series of tweets on Saturday, after the lawmaker had criticized conditions at U.S. facilities housing migrants along the Mexican border. “No human being would want to live there,” Trump said of Cumming’s Baltimore district.
