Trump on Cummings' home burglary in Baltimore: 'Too bad!'
Cummings says his home was burglarized last weekend.
President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted "Too bad!" responding to reports that the West Baltimore home of his recent African American target, Rep. Elijah Cummings, had been burglarized.
"Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed," Trump tweeted. "Too bad!”
Late Friday, Trump told reporters that he wasn't being sarcastic.
"The tweet itself was just really a repeat of what I heard over the news. I know his house was robbed. I thought that was too bad. That was really just -- that was not meant as a wise guy tweet. His house was robbed. It came over the news at a certain moment last night. I had just mentioned it," he said as he left the White House.
Trump has attacked Cummings for not doing enough to improves his district, previously tweeting, "If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place." He's also called the city a "rat and rodent infested mess" and said people there are "living in hell."
Cummings is the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is investigating Trump and his family.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley -- using an eye roll emoji -- responded to Trump's tweet about Cummings' home burglary: "This is so unnecessary."
It was a rare public rebuke of the president for Haley, who left the Trump administration with the praise of the president and earlier this week defended Trump's comments about Cummings and Baltimore.
"Instead of all of this back and forth about who everyone thinks is racist and whose not, the President just offered to help the people of Baltimore. They should take him up on it. Let’s put the same energy into where it will make a difference," Haley tweeted.
President Trump's top aide Kellyanne Conway then took to Twitter with a response to Haley.
Repeating Haley's own words, Conway said "THIS" is so unnecessary -- clearly a reference to Haley's tweet calling the president's tweet on the Cummings' burglary unnecessary.
The president's comments received widespread backlash for being racist, to which the president has responded that he is the "least racist person" in the world.
Trump claimed Baltimore has a higher murder rate than Afghanistan at a campaign rally in Cincinnati Thursday night but did not mention Cummings by name.
The break-in happened prior to Trump's tweet storm about Cummings and Baltimore last weekend.
In a statement, Cummings said an individual attempted to gain entry to his home at 3:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 27.
"I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house," Cummings said. "I thank the Baltimore Police Department for their response and ask that all further inquiries be directed to them.”
Baltimore City Police reported it is "investigating a report of a burglary that occurred on July 27, 2019, at approximately 3:40 a.m. at a home in the 2000 block of Madison Avenue. At this time, it is unknown if any property was taken from the location."
ABC News' Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.