President-elect Donald Trump began a long holiday weekend that honors slain black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. by attacking another rights activist and politician who had said he does not see Trump as a “legitimate president.”
Lewis, a Georgia Democrat had stated: “I don’t see the president-elect as a legitimate president.” He added, “I think the Russians participated in having this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don’t plan to attend the Inauguration. I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians, and others, that helped him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open, democratic process.
He does not plan to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the first time he would miss such an event since being elected to the House in 1986.
On Saturday Trump tweeted that Lewis had falsely complained about the election results and instead “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested).”
“All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!” Trump tweeted.
During the campaign, Trump said Democrats had failed African-Americans and Hispanics. “What the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance,” he said at a rally last year in Ohio.
The 76-year-old Lewis, who has been a civil rights leader for more than half a century, has been described as being a far-left or hard-core liberal. He was beaten by police during a march he helped lead in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, drawing attention to hurdles for blacks to vote. He protested alongside King that day and on other occasions.
“I believe in forgiveness,” Lewis said in the NBC segment about Trump. “I believe in trying to work with people,” he said. “It’s going to be very difficult. I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
Supporters of Trump see him as a brash person who tells things as they are. His comments about Lewis came ahead of an anti-Trump march in Washington headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. The protest by about 2,000 marchers kicked off a week of rallies planned by dozens of groups against Trump before, during and after the inauguration.
DisruptJ20, which is working with Black Lives Matter and other protest groups, said they are planning to disrupt balls celebrating the inauguration in Washington, and the inauguration itself, promising to cause havoc through blockades and other disruptive measures. One organiser told Fox News he hopes to “turn the inauguration into as big of a clusterf— as possible.”
TV personality Rosie O’Donnell on Friday called for martial law to stop the inauguration.
A group called bikers for Trump say they will form ‘a wall of meat’ in Washington protect the president-elect from the protesters.
Some 12 hours after his first tweets against Lewis, Trump came back with one more recommendation for the black leader.
“Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!,” Trump tweeted late in the day.