'Millions fight against your radical lunacy': Kenyatta hits back at Trump's 'thieves & lunatics' jab

Malcolm Kenyatta, the Democratic representative for Pennsylvania's 181st district, pushed back against President Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric in his Mount Rushmore speech, where the 80-year-old said American ancestors did not shed their blood so that a "band of thieves, radicals and lunatics" could come in and "loot" and "pillage" the nation. Kenyatta's response on X was succinct and sharp: "That's why millions of Americans fight against your radical lunacy and call out your corrupt pillaging every single day."

Kenyatta, who also serves as the Democratic National Committee's vice chair, is among Trump's most vocal critics. He recently pushed back after the president celebrated a U.S. Supreme Court ruling permitting states to ban transgender women from competing in female school and college sports, slamming Trump's victory lap by pointing to scandals of his own — including the $5 million E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case.

In this specific instance, Kenyatta's comments follow Trump drumming up the specter of communism throughout his speeches over the weekend. The 80-year-old devoted a significant portion of his Mount Rushmore speech on the eve of Independence Day to warning of communism's threat to the American way of life. "Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11," he said.

Trump did not mention any names explicitly, but he appeared to be alluding to a string of wins by Democratic Socialists in recent primaries in New York and Colorado. He went on to accuse those who "peddle Marx's lies" about America's heritage — telling children the country was built on "stolen land" or that its heroes were oppressors — of doing something worse than slandering the past. "They're slandering and attacking our future," he said, vowing not to let anyone "tear down the great American character".

The president picked up the same thread the next day at the "Salute to America" event, building on remarks he'd first made on July 3. "America will never be a communist country. The communist system is the opposite of the American system," he said. "Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen. We like to stop a threat like that immediately and before it begins. It's like a cancer. You got to cut it out fast," he said.