Rep. Elijah Cummings dies at 68, gave last major public speech at Press Club in August

“Coming from sharecropper parents to speaking at a sold-out National Press Club luncheon, I’ve come a long way," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said at an Aug. 7 National Press Club Luncheon.

Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, died Thursday at 68. The House Oversight Committee is one of three committees involved in the current Trump impeachment inquiry.

“We are better than this,” Cummings said during his August appearance referring to the current vitriol in the nation.

Cummings, who had been personally attacked by President Donald Trump, particularly took offense to the president’s attacks of Baltimore in the two weeks prior to his speech. He represented a portion of Baltimore for two decades. Yet, he told us he would not attack Trump directly.

“I won’t even mention his name,” he told us the week before his speech.

Cummings informed us he would keep the dialogue at a “higher plane” of “the nation’s values.” Thepress wondered why he was not in the media commenting on the personal attacks, but his office had told us he’d be “holding his fire” for the Club speech – that’s how much it meant to him.

The night before the Club event, Cummings’ top aide, Jean Waskow, came over and looked at and helped arrange all the logistics from entry to lunch chair and podium with stool behind.

The morning of the event, with Cummings in a wheelchair, Waskow said, “He’s not doing so well,” and he asked if he could cut the questions off early. We told him he could, but that C-Span covers gavel-to-gavel live for a sharp hour. Cummings immediately responded, “We’ll do it, we’ll do what we have to do.” He gave his entire speech without using the stool, and then answered questions moderated by former Club President Jeff Ballou in a two-armchair format arranged by Club staffer Lindsay Underwood.

In his speech, Cummings stuck to his plan and laid out what he believed the president should be doing. He cited his committee’s investigations into prescription drug prices, security clearances, and compliance with congressional oversight subpoenas. He defended the “great work” being done in Baltimore and said he would “welcome” the president’s help. He repeated his statement, “We are better than this,” which many in Congress and several presidential candidates have repeated. Of President Trump’s demeaning many groups and Baltimore, he said, “We all are sick of this. We all want decency and respect, decency and respect.”

In the speech, Cummings also urged Congress to return from recess to address gun violence, and said his mother on her deathbed said the most important action is protecting “the vote.”

Club President Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak at the Club membership meeting Oct. 11 cited the Cummings luncheon as one of the Club’s best ever, as many members in attendance said after the event.

The Club expresses its deepest sympathy to Rep. Cummings’ family, staff, and his many friends.