Pelosi calls Kushner a 'slumlord' as she defends Cummings

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a shot at Jared Kushner on Thursday as she defended Rep. Elijah Cummings after days of attacks from President Donald Trump.

Pelosi, a Baltimore native, said that, instead of focusing his ire on Cummings, Trump should look within his own family when it comes to deteriorating housing conditions in the city.

"The president — this comes as no surprise — really doesn't know what he's talking about. But maybe you could ask his son-in-law, who's a slumlord there, if he wants to talk about rodent infestations," Pelosi said of Kushner.

Kushner's real estate firm owns thousands of apartments in the Baltimore area and has been dogged by hundreds of code violations — including black mold and mice infestations — for years.

Pelosi's remarks follow a multi-day tirade from Trump during which he lashed out at Cummings repeatedly on Twitter and to reporters at the White House, calling the African-American lawmaker "racist" and his Baltimore district a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings is leading investigations into several areas of the Trump administration.

Just last week, the Oversight panel authorized subpoenas for communications that senior White House officials — including Kushner — sent using private email accounts and messaging apps. And two weeks ago Cummings ripped into acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan over squalid conditions at migrant facilities along the border.

Trump's attacks on Cummings come just weeks after he was condemned for racist attacks on four freshman congresswomen of color, telling them to "go back" to where they came from.

The House quickly moved to denounce Trump's remarks against the four progressive freshmen, with Pelosi calling them "racist" during a speech on the House floor. The speaker also rejected the president's attacks on Cummings as "racist."

"Elijah Cummings is the pride of Baltimore," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "To see the president demean a great leader like Elijah Cummings shows his own insecurity and his own lack of understanding about what progress really is."