STUART VARNEY (HOST): Are you a racist if you criticize an African-American politician? The left says, oh, yes you are. The charge, Trump is a racist, is now an established theme in the Democrats' 2020 campaign. I object. Just because you use harsh language doesn't mean your intent is to denigrate another race. Throwing that word around, racist, shuts down the debate. You can't solve problems if you can't speak freely. The word racist is applied to just about anybody. It no longer has bite.

Baltimore has brought the racist charge to a boil. In a series of tweets, the president has criticized Congressman Elijah Cummings. He is a Democrat who has represent a major -- majority Black district for over 20 years. The president described Cummings' district as quote, “A disgusting rat and rodent-infested mess where no human being would want to live.” Oh, that caused outrage. The media jumped on it, and from there on out, branded the president a racist and a bigot. Again, I object. The president was describing reality. Bernie Sanders has said exactly the same thing, but he wasn't called a racist. Oh, no, he's a socialist. Now we find that Congressman Cummings himself had used similar language. He said Baltimore was quote, “drug-infested, and the residents walked around like zombies.” He was saying same thing as the president. Nobody criticized him for telling it the way it is, but Trump is a racist.

This smearing, this name calling is a deliberate political tactic, and I think it's going to fail. The weak performance of Democrats running big cities can no longer be covered up. This president, unlike any other president, is prepared to call it how he sees it, and damn the consequences. The president wants the votes of African-Americans. He's courting them. Instead of pandering with offers of money, he is asking what happened to the billions already spent? Baltimore got 1.8 billion just from the stimulus package. What happened to it? Where did the money go? The Democrats have opened Pandora's Box without realizing it. They thought that calling him a racist would silence him. Wrong. They've given him a campaign theme. And that theme is, the Democrats failing their own supporters.