Trump launched another tweet storm over the weekend this time directed at Congressman Elijah Cummings who is African-American the president insulted Cummings's district it's majority black and it includes part of Baltimore this is just Trump's latest attack against a nonwhite member of Congress and critics say it is a political tactic of stoking divisions ahead of the 2020 lections N.P.R.'s Aisha Rosco is following the issue and joins us from the White House Hello Ok just a couple weeks ago of course the president went after 4 members of Congress who are women of color and Democrats now he's going after Congressman Cummings who is a Democrat leading multiple investigations into the Trump administration lots of people see a pattern here singling out people of color for very personal attacks what does the White House say about it so the White House and Trump campaign say that this is not intentional that the white that the president is simply criticizing people that he doesn't agree with and race has nothing to do with it a Trump's acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was pressed on this matter on Fox News Sunday he had this exchange with host Chris Wallace these are all 6 members of members of Congress who are people of color I think it's been spending way too much time reading between the lines does and I'm not reading between the lines on reading the laws that he so move Amy says people are looking too deeply into this but it's Trump specific language about these lawmakers this drawing fire he described some more in dramatic time terms basically as a place no human being would want to live saying it was disgusting rotten rodent infested mess and about 600000 people live in Baltimore and poverty is not limited to that city there are plenty of towns and cities in this country who struggle with poverty poverty including those that are have voters who generally back back President Trump but we don't see Trump criticizing those places tell us about how the latest targets of these attacks are responding so Reverend Al Sharpton went to Baltimore he had a press conference ahead of that trump Bastion he claimed that Sharpton hates whites and cops and caught him. A con man Sharpton had a lot say about that call me a troublemaker Yes I'm a Jabal for bigots I'm a trouble for him with Central Park I made trouble with him for birds risen I will keep making trouble for big trees was me being a car and if you really thought I was a con man he'd be nominating me for his care. And Sharpton wasn't the only one firing back the local newspaper The Baltimore Sun ran an editorial that said better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one referring to trump we should know that Central Park and birth are as it were to other moments the Trump took a very public position against people of color in one case President Barack Obama. President compensates a lot of his opponents including politicians explain how these particular insults against people of color are different how do they stand out is a particular tone and that he's taken and the target his language about people of color who criticize him often seems to include nods to stereotypes these tropes go back to your country crime infested areas and they have a long history in this in America and in a cruel history and I did a lot of reporting on this issue back last summer cataloguing hundreds of Trump's tweets and what stood out to me going through those tweets is that Trump had praise for black celebrities and lawmakers who supported him he would say they were smart or that they get it but for those black people who opposed him he would say they were dumb or low i.q. And you this kind of specific language only on them as you say this kind of language has been along for has been around for a long time in America what changes when it's the president of the United States using it so I spoke to our University Professor Greg Carr and what he said is that it's not really just the words from Trump that we have politicians who've done this before but it's the silence from Republicans and others in power who defend these words that kind of contribute to this idea that black people will be permanent outsiders and that they will never be fully accepted by this country that's n.p.r. White House reporter Ayesha Rosco thank you thank you. Now earlier his administration President actually invited Alija coming to the White House to talk about ways they could collaborate on lowering prescription drug prices when Democrats took the House in January they'd hoped that it was an issue they could work on with the president but the congressman's role as head of the House Oversight Committee has led to the breakdown of their relationship N.P.R.'s to math joins us now welcome to the studio Tim Hey there all right so let's begin with this acrimony when did it begin so you'll remember earlier this year at the president's State of the Union he made clear that he couldn't work with Democrats if they investigated him Well Democrats have not set investigations aside in fact the House Oversight Committee led by Cummings is one of the primary committees investigating the trumpet ministration the panel has separate investigations into for example the origin of a new citizenship question in the 2020 census and the White House's security clearance process but it's also personal Cummings is looking into trump the Trump organizations financial records and whether Trump's daughter and son in law have used private e-mail accounts to conduct official White House business and any efforts with Cummings to address drug costs really seems to fall on by the wayside over the president over the weekend comings tweeted that he still wanted to work with the president on the issue I asked Cummings's office if he had any specific response he still hasn't spoken out on the issue other than a few tweets over the weekend and it's letting other people defend him but Congressman Cummings has been going at this investigation for a long time so what prompted the weekend tweets so are you should touched on the wider context of the president's tweets about African-Americans it's certainly not the 1st time where the president has used language like infested but this particular episode appears to stem from a Fox News report about coming to his district which ran minutes before Trump began tweeting Take a listen to how it starts Democrats like Congressman watch a calming say they care about how migrants are being treated at the border but what about the families and people in their own district so the president has. Also called Cummings a brutal bully who has been too critical about the u.s. Border Patrol Cummings responded on Twitter that it was his quote constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the executive branch his committee also includes a number of other high profile Trump opponents like a o.c. And Rashida to lead for example that's Alexandria because he Cortez now the president specifically mention the u.s. Border Patrol while lashing out at Cummings over the weekend so what has the congressman said about the crisis at the border so as chair of the Oversight Committee Cummings has been really vocal about the treatment of migrant children at the border here he is talking about this at a recent committee hearing they are human beings and I'm trying to figure out and not get hired of folks saying oh oh they just beaten up along the border patrol Oh they'd just be done up on home ice you know what I'm saying is I want to concentrate on these children so Democrats and Republicans will generally say that they agree that there is a crisis at the border but Cummings has been more passionate and vocal than most on the issue as you've just heard what this whole episode shows is that the president has clearly decided he's not willing to just let investigations and criticism of his administration go unremarked upon That's N.P.R.'s Ted thanks for explaining it thanks a lot. Tunisia said goodbye to its 1st democratically elected president over the weekend President veggie Kiat a subsea died last week at the age of 92 he helped North African country transition to democracy after it erupted in protests during the 2011 Arab Spring immediately after a subsidies death the Tunisian parliament named its speaker Mohamed and Officer interim president now experts are keeping a close eye on the country's Tunisians prepared to elect a new leader in September 1 of those experts is Syria Yorkies She's a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and she's here in our studio to talk about what the future looks like for Tunisia and the region welcome to All Things Considered thank you for having me so remind us of the history of how Tunisia became the start of the spread of protests across the region that became known as the Arab Spring so Tunisia started it all there was a person a young man named Mohammed Bouazizi who lit him selfe on fire he was angry with the government he started the whole revolution which then eventually spread to Egypt and we had this phenomenon called the Arab Spring where a lot of countries the people realize they had power they saw in Tunisia they unseated a dictator who had been in power for 30 years the same thing happened in Egypt and people thought why not tried here too but now the last man standing the rest of the countries did not result in democratic change and some of them went down into a horrific civil war like Syria I mean Yemen these countries are so much worse off how significant was a subsea in steering Tunisia towards a more peaceful path and said she was really crucial he and another leader of Russia to a new she who's the head of the Islamist party not-A the 2 of them are really the godfathers of the Tunisian transition they decided to put the country ahead of their own political ambitions when things started to go off the rails in 20122013 there assassinations they decided you know what we're going to come together despite our really dislike for each other we're going to make sure that he just is on track there's a popular narrative that Tunisia is the only country to have emerged from the Arab Spring better off I have a friend there who is a human rights lawyer and he told me there were no human rights lawyers before 2011 in this country but. You're right that narrative that the country is better off now is not necessarily entirely true explain sure the economy which is actually what led their spring to start in the 1st place is worse than it was back in 201-2011 young people in particular face high levels of an unemployment university graduates almost a 3rd of them are unemployed so things are not looking so great when you look at economics politically it's doing wonderfully on the economic front it's actually not things are worse than before another interesting way to measure Tunisia's success or lack thereof is the number of people who were just fleeing the country by sea right exactly Tunisia was the number one contributor of migrants to Italy Tunisians not people from sub-Saharan Africa going through Tunisia So this is another big issue you have brain drain you have the suicide rate is almost doubled all the show that people are frustrated they're angry they're not seeing the change they thought democracy would bring them or they thought the revolution would bring them and a poor economy a youth unemployment these things can lead to protests kind of lead to more political turmoil what does the future look like for Tunisia what are you going to be watching as it go through this government transition so this tradition has been smooth so far but they're going to have to do elections on a really short schedule they only have 7 weeks to pull off presidential elections that's not a lot of time this is a crucial test for Tunisia to see how the democracy can actually move forward are they able to keep up with the constitution to keep up with the procedures that are in place but people are watching they're angry they're frustrated they want this government to bring them actual real change real change to their pocketbooks and I'm not sure they're going to able to do that on the timeline the people want Syracuse of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thank you for joining us today thank you so much. 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Show law enforcement seizures of meth more than doubled between 20172018 Martha being a member station in Boston reports on the growing problem of meth use there are many paths to meth Mike Leslie who's 37 found his way to math after more than 20 years of drug use that started with weed progressed to cocaine and then opioids pain pills heroin and fentanyl about a year ago Leslie had stopped using fentanyl but was struggling against the urge to get high when he ran into an old acquaintance from the streets in Boston you know he was selling meth and it was basically the one thing that out there that I had tried that was now readily available and I tried it Leslie realized right away why meth hooks people who are already using drugs it's relatively cheap one hit keeps you high and awake for days as compared to Fentanyl which wears off every few hours and many people think meth is safer than with I want that you can find oh I would. Likely overdose and dying and this was basically coke or crack times 50 powerful high that wrecked Leslie's life he kept working years back while on heroin but 4 months after his 1st injection of meth Leslie had lost his job dropped out of graduate school and was sleeping on the floor of a train station as soon as I tried it I was no longer functioning it was all about the math easy access to meth is new for Boston and many reasons of the country but no longer unusual a federal program that monitors drug seizures in $32.00 so-called high intensity drug trafficking areas or high dose shows meth rising in virtually every one John who tracks emerging drug threats through the Haida network says the sharp increase in seizures signals a major rapidly developing problem the reason we're so concerned is that as seizures go up the supply in the streets go up equivalently And with that go deaths all stimulants are on the rise meth rates are the highest but cocaine is up too and doctors are prescribing more stimulant medications such as those used to treat 80 h.t. Looking at these combined increases e.t.c as a stimulant epidemic in twined with the opioid crisis we're seeing almost as many people now starting up methamphetamines and cocaine and prescription stimulants as are abusing the opioids so the problem is getting worse at the moment and it's more complicated to deal with that's not news to Bradley Osgood the chief of police in Concord New Hampshire math and phantom it just presents a whole new issue for us in our offices are getting hurt we've had concussions we've had broken hands while trying to pull someone who resists out of traffic for example Osgood says calls to revive someone who's overdosed on opioids or. Finally starting to dry up but meth is more than filling the gap it's search what we're seeing from heroin found on the rise in meth is just. Unbelievable Fentanyl which stops breathing is still the leading killer in this drug Demick a meth related heart attack or stroke is less common but some emergency room doctors are seeing more patients arrive with what looks like a stimulant overdose extreme agitation your heart is racing your blood pressure is going up you're probably becoming incredibly sweaty Dr Melissa lie Becker and her staff may have to restrain a patient so they can inject a sedative for at least 10 years Ludacris says the stimulant overdoses were rare in her small hospital outside Boston these days she sees about 4 a week doctors often don't know if a patient is on meth or cocaine or some new stimulant cooked up in a lab outside the u.s. The Da 2nd in command from New England John de Lina toured a lab last month deep in a Mexican jungle that the military had just shut down a lab that was responsible for the production of up to 7 tons of crystal methamphetamine every 3 days 7 tons of crystal meth a solid glass like form of the drug could fetch hundreds of millions of dollars those are the drugs that are coming to the United States and ultimately up into our region dilema says the Mexican cartels put almost all u.s. Meth producers out of business several years ago with a cheaper more potent version of the drug he says cartel leaders figured out that drug users would want an alternative to fentanyl they study the trends just like you know people here study the stock market and they know what the next trend is going to be and sometimes they force that trend upon people and that's exactly what they're doing in this case meth and other amphetamines have been a tool for people working 2 or 3 jobs for decades drug users now may use meth to pick themselves. Up after being sedated by an opioid meth is cheap and delivers a long lasting high with meth seizures more than doubling between 20172018 Boston University epidemiologist Tracy Greene sees an urgent need to understand just what's driving meth use I think we need to start paying a lot more attention to stimulants and quickly but says Greene without losing the focus on curbing opioid overdose deaths for n.p.r. News I'm Martha be bigger in Boston. It's time to play this song on our air again. It's official earlier today Old Town Road by little x. Broke the record for most w