Rashida Tlaib tears into Trump’s 'unhinged tweets' and 'hate agenda' in scathing editorial

Just two weeks after embroiling himself in a week-long racism scandal by telling four Democratic congresswomen of colour to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came", Donald Trump is at it again.

The president of the United States continues to use his Twitter account for ill, this time attacking House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings and describing his African-American majority Baltimore district as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and a "very dangerous and filthy place" where "No human being would want to live".

Trump was nominally responding to Cummings' outspoken criticism of the unsanitary conditions in his administration's migrant detention centres on the US-Mexico border, although it is worth remembering the veteran black congressman has also spearheaded Democratic investigations against the president and his inner circle.

When the legendary civil rights icon the Reverend Al Sharpton came to Cummings' defence, Trump called him a "con man", prompting Sharpton to fire back that the president reserves "a particular venom for people of colour”.

Undaunted, Trump continued to attack Cummings, suggesting he should "investigate himself" over the federal funding "stolen or wasted" since being handed to the Maryland port city to boost its economy, before having the audacity to tell reporters on the White House South Lawn on Tuesday that he was "the least racist person in the world" and claiming (without evidence) that he had been inundated with supportive calls, letters and emails from the black community applauding him for calling out local corruption.

David Simon, creator of HBO's Baltimore-set crime series The Wire, called the president "a permanent stain on our land" while state governor Larry Hogan branded him "outrageous and inappropriate".

Another person who has understandably had enough of all this is Rashida Tlaib, Democratic congresswoman for Michigan and one of the progressive "Squad" Trump tore into last time around alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.

Writing in an op-ed for The Washington Post, the woman Trump labelled "a crazed lunatic" says:

While my colleagues and I work on ways to improve the lives of our constituents, he is focused on a hate agenda for our country.

Accusing Trump of "harmful distraction through unhinged tweets and speeches", Tlaib says the president "disgraces his office with rhetoric rooted in hate".

She continues:

It is a remarkable time in our country’s history when the president is hindering our desire for universal health care, lower prescription drug prices, equity in education, and stopping the for-profit schemes that hurt children and communities such as mine.

With every hate-fuelled tweet, he gets us off track as we try to hold him and his reckless administration accountable.

Tlaib accuses the president of undermining democracy by having his aides stonewall and snub subpoenas issued by congressional committees like Cummings' Oversight panel in response to the Mueller report and setting a "dangerous precedent".

She once more calls for the president's impeachment for obstructing justice and charges him with "running our government in a pay-to-play manner".

While Trump tweets, I will work for the people who sent me here and to ensure they - and all other Americans - have someone who isn’t afraid to speak truth to power.

Hateful, bigoted or racist tweets won’t stop me, nor will they stop our democracy. I will always outwork the hate. My district and country depend on it.

More: What the Baltimore Sun did in response to Trump's 'rodent' insults