Donald Trump huffed and puffed online after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore challenged him to walk the streets of his state.
The 79-year-old president lashed out on Truth Social on Sunday at Moore’s “nasty and provocative” invitation three days earlier to join him for some light cardio in Baltimore, calling the city a “crime disaster” and threatening to deploy National Guard troops.
Trump was so angry about the public safety walk invitation that he suggested he may pull federal support for rebuilding the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed last year.
Could always do what that town did during the Cold War, and ask Russia to fund the reconstruction.
For the unaware, Vulcan West Virginia was a tiny coal mining town that had been trying to get a bridge built for a few years, but the state was dragging their feet on funding. The town was only accessible via a private gravel footpath (that was technically off limits to the public, since it was owned by the local railway company,) and a small footbridge that was in shambles. For years, the town had been begging the state to build a proper bridge. But the state was reluctant to build a bridge that wouldn’t see a lot of use.
In 1975, the suspension footbridge collapsed, meaning the only remaining way in or out of town was to trespass on the railway’s gravel road. So that town contacted the USSR, and asked them to fund the new bridge. The USSR never actually responded, but the town also contacted the news… And the Soviet reporters jumped at the chance to make “US town seeking humanitarian aid from USSR” headlines.
Suddenly, the state announced that they had money to build the bridge. The announcement came on the same day that a Russian reporter traveled to Vulcan to interview the residents. The official story from the state was that the bridge had been planned for months, and it simply took time to get the ball rolling… But everyone knew that the state was simply embarrassed into funding the bridge.