President Donald Trump mocked the demotion of New York Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman, despite the fact that Weisman was demoted for racially inflammatory tweets similar to Trump's.

The current controversy over Weisman began in late July when he stated in a since-deleted series of tweets that members of Congress from Minneapolis and Detroit weren't legitimately from the Midwest.

Weisman later set off widespread outrage by appearing to insinuate that a black congressional candidate wasn't really black, and demanded that people who mocked him apologize.

The Times announced they would demote Weisman over his "serious lapses in judgment" so he would no longer be overseeing the paper's congressional coverage or be "active on social media."

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President Donald Trump mocked the demotion of New York Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman, despite the fact that Weisman was demoted for racially inflammatory tweets similar to some of Trump's own statements.

"Wow! The Deputy Editor of the Failing New York Times was just demoted. Should have been Fired! Totally biased and inaccurate reporting. The paper is a Fraud, Zero Credibility. Fake News takes another hit, but this time a big one!" Trump tweeted.

In mid-July, Trump set off a firestorm when he tweeted that four progressive congresswomen of color known as "The Squad" should "go back and fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came," despite three out of four of the congresswomen being born in the United States.

The current controversy over Weisman began in late July when he stated in a since-deleted series of tweets that Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — two members of the group of four freshman members of Congress known as "The Squad" and the only two Muslim women in Congress — weren't legitimately "from the Midwest" because they represent Minneapolis and Detroit.

The tweet also bizarrely claimed that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia — a civil rights icon — wasn't from the "deep south," despite the fact that Lewis grew up in southern Alabama as the son of sharecroppers.

It wasn't even the first time Weisman had de-integrated the value of a non-white member of Congress from a major Midwestern city on social media or suggested that white people were more legitimate residents of the Midwest.

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Shortly after former Minnesota attorney general and former congressman Keith Ellison was appointed chair of the Democratic National Committee in November 2016, Weisman tweeted, "defeated Dems could've tapped Rust Belt populist to head party. Instead, black, Muslim progressive from Minneapolis?" — the supposed implication being that a "Rust Belt populist" would be white.

Then, Weisman tweeted about the progressive group Justice Democrats endorsing congressional candidate Morgan Harper, in which he characterized her candidacy as "seeking to unseat an African-American Democrat, Joyce Beatty."

When Harper pointed out that she too was black, Weisman cryptically wrote that Justice Democrats' endorsement of her "included a photo," which was widely interpreted as Weisman publicly questioning whether or not she was really black and sparked immediate outrage.

Weisman then sent frantic emails to the prominent author and occasional Times columnist Roxane Gay, her assistant, and her publisher demanding she apologize for mocking him online when she tweeted, "any time you think you're unqualified for a job, remember that this guy, telling a black woman she isn't black because he looked at a picture and can't see, has one of the most prestigious jobs in America."

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After Weisman's controversial tweets, The New York Times said in a statement that he had "repeatedly displayed poor judgment on social media and in responding to criticism" and they were determining "what to do about it."

Shortly after, they announced that while Weisman would remain an editor in The Times' Washington bureau, they would demote him over his "serious lapses in judgment" so he would no longer be overseeing the paper's congressional coverage and said he would "no longer be active on social media."