Trump attacks congressman in his latest social media escalation
Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday fired off a new attack on Representative Debbie Dingell, the widow of John D. Dingell Jr., the longest-serving congressman in American history, calling her a “loser” and suggesting she is not grateful for the funeral honors Mr. Trump bestowed on her husband.
The salvo from Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, followed an appearance by Ms. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, on CNN earlier on Tuesday in which she criticized Trump’s increasingly inflammatory language on social media.
Weeks before the first nominating contests are held in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former president has increased his vitriol. He shared a word cloud this week in which the word “dictatorship” was prominently featured and recently described people entering the United States illegally as “poisoning the blood of our country,” comments that were condemned as being similar to the words of Adolf Hitler.
Ms Dingell had responded to a complaint-filled Christmas message on Mr Trump’s Truth Social. Referring to his political opponents as “deranged” and “criminals” and accusing them of trying to destroy the country, he wrote: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
The congresswoman — against whom Mr. Trump has harbored a grudge for years and suggested in 2019 that her recently deceased husband was “looking up” from hell — said this was another example of the former president stoking anger.
“I think it was one of the saddest Christmas greetings I’ve heard when a former president of the United States who wants to return tells people on Christmas Day that they can rot in hell,” she told CNN. “He is contributing to the division and division in this country.”
Ms. Dingell’s criticism appeared to rankle at Mr. Trump, who has long engaged with her, starting with her vote in 2019 to impeach him for the first time. About nine hours after her appearance on CNN, Mr. Trump targeted Ms. Dingell on Truth Social, saying she had become an enabler of President Biden and his failed policies.
Trump returned to a familiar line of attack: her husband’s death in 2019 and his funeral.
“When I, as president, gave her long-serving husband the absolute highest American honor for his funeral, a very big deal, she called me, crying almost uncontrollably, to say she couldn’t believe I was willing to do that. a Democrat,” Mr. Trump wrote. “She thanked me profusely. Two months later she was back on the road, ranting and raving about ‘TRUMP.’”
At the time, Mr. Trump had ordered American flags lowered to half-staff. He called Ms Dingell to offer his condolences, but their accounts of that exchange differ widely, with Mr Trump repeatedly suggesting he had played an outsized role in the “A-plus treatment” given to Mrs. Dingell’s husband of 38 years.
Mr. Dingell retired from Congress in 2014 after serving his district outside Detroit for 59 years. Mrs Dingell wanted to succeed her husband and was elected five times. Her vote in 2019 to impeach Mr Trump angered the president, who made headlines by saying her late husband was in hell.
At a rally that year in Michigan, Mr. Trump mocked Ms. Dingell for the way he said she had behaved during the phone call after her husband’s death. He suggested that Mrs. Dingell had begged him to lower the American flags to half-mast and, apparently impersonating her, said: “Do this, do that, do that. Roundabout.”
Mr. Dingell did not lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Mrs Dingell has said this was not one of her husband’s requests.
On Tuesday, she denounced Mr. Trump, telling CNN that his attacks had put her in danger.
“After he went after me, quite frankly, there were men outside my house with assault weapons, and I’ve had threats,” she said.