Trump Assails Debbie Dingell in His Latest Escalation on Social Media

Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday fired off a new attack against Representative Debbie Dingell, the widow of John D. Dingell Jr., the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, calling her a “loser” and suggesting that she had not been grateful for funeral honors granted by Mr. Trump for her husband.

The salvo from Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, followed an appearance by Ms. Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, on CNN earlier on Tuesday in which she criticized Mr. Trump’s increasingly incendiary language on social media.

Weeks before the first nominating contests are held in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former president has amplified his vitriol. He shared a word cloud this week that prominently featured the word “dictatorship” and recently described people who entered the United States illegally as “poisoning the blood of our country,” comments that were condemned for being similar to the words of Adolf Hitler.

Ms. Dingell had been reacting to a grievance-filled Christmas message on Truth Social from Mr. Trump. Referring to his political opponents as “deranged” and “thugs” and accusing them of trying to destroy the country, he wrote, “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

The congresswoman — whom Mr. Trump has held a grudge against for years, implying in 2019 that her recently deceased husband was “looking up” from hell — said that it was another example of the former president fomenting anger.

“I think it was one of the most pathetic Christmas greetings I’ve heard when a former president of the United States who wants to return tells people on Christmas Day that they can rot in hell,” she told CNN. “He is contributing to the divisiveness and division in this country.”