Press Conference Backfire: Rep. Elijah Cummings Calls Out Trump For Making Up A Story About Him

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:06 pm

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) called out President Trump for making up a story about the Democratic congressman being told by Chuck Schumer not to attend a meeting with him.

During his press conference, Trump claimed, “Let’s go set up a meeting. I would love to meet with the Black Caucus. I think it’s great, the Congressional Black Caucus. I think it’s great. I actually thought I had a meeting with Congressman Cummings and he was all excited. And then he said, well, I can’t move, it might be bad for me politically. I can’t have that meeting. I was all set to have the meeting. You know, we called him and called him. And he was all set. I spoke to him on the phone, very nice guy. He wanted it, but we called, called, called and can’t make a meeting with him. Every day I walk and say I would like to meet with him because I do want to solve the problem. But he probably was told by Schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight. He was probably told – he was probably told “don’t meet with Trump. It’s bad politics.”

Rep. Cummings said that Trump’s claim that Democrats backed out of the meeting with him was a made up piece of fiction.

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In a statement to the press, Rep. Cummings said:

I have no idea why President Trump would make up a story about me like he did today. Of course, Senator Schumer never told me to skip a meeting with the President. I was actually looking forward to meeting with the President about the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs. What I have been doing for the past several weeks is working closely with my partner on these efforts, Senator Bernie Sanders.

My goal was to finalize our proposal to allow HHS to negotiate lower drug prices so I could present it to the President. The President has said many times that he supports this proposal, so I wanted to have our bill ready to get his support.

I also sincerely have no idea why the President made this claim in response to an unrelated question about the Congressional Black Caucus. I am sure members of the CBC can answer these questions for themselves. “The skyrocketing price of prescription drugs is an issue that affects every American family—not just people of color—and I hope the President will make good on his promise to finally allow HHS to negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of American families. I look forward to meeting with him on this issue and others.

On any other day with any other president, a member of the Congress claiming that the president made up a story about him would be at the top of the news headlines, but in the era of Trump, it gets overlooked and consumed by a tidal wave of other falsehoods.

What happened to Rep. Cummings is proof that there is nothing too small for President Trump to lie about. Trump will make up stories about anything, and if the American people can’t trust him to tell the truth about why he hasn’t met with African-American Congressional leaders, they definitely can’t trust him to tell the truth about his relationship with Russia during the presidential campaign.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association