Pelosi Defends Baltimore against Trump Attacks, Calls Kushner ’Slumlord’

By Staff, Agencies 

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday defended Baltimore, the city where she grew up, against repeated verbal attacks by US President Donald Trump, and she charged that the president's own son-in-law was a "slumlord" there.

Trump has criticized an African-American congressman, Representative Elijah Cummings, and his district, which includes part of Maryland's largest city, as a "disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess" where "no human" would want to live.

"The president, this comes as no surprise, really doesn't know what he's talking about," Pelosi, a Democrat whose father and brother were both mayors of Baltimore, told reporters as she walked through the US Capitol.

Pelosi further stated: “But maybe you could ask his son-in-law, who's a slumlord there, if he wants to talk about rodent infestations,” in an apparent reference to Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka.

A real estate firm run by Kushner's family owns thousands of rental units in Maryland, most in Baltimore County, the Baltimore Sun reported earlier this year.

A Kushner Companies representative told the Baltimore Sun in a statement that it "is proud to own thousands of apartments in the Baltimore area.