President Trump is under fire for a series of tweets blasting Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) by calling Cummings' home district of Baltimore "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."
"If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place," the President tweeted on Saturday in a screed so apparently awful and racist that it brought a CNN anchor to tears.
Here's the thing, though: Baltimore is actually a rat-and-rodent-infested mess. Heck, even former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh agrees!
And, like every other rat-and-rodent-infested mess of a city in the United States, Baltimore has been run with near-unanimous control by the Democratic Party. It hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1967, and when "The Dan O'Donnell Show" contacted City Hall following the Freddie Gray riots, the Department of Records admitted that it could not find a single Republican who has served on the city council in decades.
It is not a coincidence that every one of the municipalities on Orkin Pest Control's list of the top ten "Rattiest Cities" has been run by Democrats for years. What's more, only one of the 20 rattiest cities currently has a Republican mayor and just three have had a Republican mayor in the past decade. Just five have had a Republican mayor this century.
It's been an average of 55 years since the country's ten most rat-infested cities have had a Republican mayor, indicating that Democrats have similarly dominated their city councils as well. Given that all ten have had such heavy concentrations of Democratic voters, none have had much (if any) Republican representation in either state or federal government for generations.
The rattiest city in America, Chicago, last had a Republican mayor 88 years ago, in 1931. The second most rat-infested city, Los Angeles, last had a Republican mayor in 2001, but he was the only Republican in office since 1961. The third-most rat-infested city, New York, has had two Republican mayors. One however (Michael Bloomberg) famously left the Republican party midway through his term while the other (Rudy Giuliani) is widely credited with cleaning up the city in the 1990s. Today, New York is run by avowed Socialist Bill de Blasio, and the petty crime, homelessness, and rodent infestations that Giuliani worked so hard to reduce have returned.
The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1910 and is the fourth-rattiest city in America, while San Francisco--another city targeted by President Trump in later tweets blasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi--has the fifth-largest rat infestation and hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1964.
Below is a breakdown of the most rat-infested cities in America followed by the year in which they last had a Republican mayor:
1. Chicago, Illinois (1931)
2. Los Angeles, California (2001)
3. New York, New York (2001)
4. Washington, DC (1910)
5. San Francisco, California (1964)
6. Detroit, Michigan (1962)
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1952)
8. Cleveland, Ohio (1989)
9. Baltimore, Maryland (1967)
10. Denver, Colorado (1963)
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota (1973)
12. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (2011)
13. Boston, Massachusetts (1930)
14. Seattle, Washington (1969)
15. Atlanta, Georgia (1879)
16. Indianapolis, Indiana (2016)
17. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Florida (2019)
18. Hartford, Connecticut (1971)
19. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1934)
20. Cincinnati, Ohio (1971)