Trump attack on civil rights leader on Twitter

PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday at a prominent civil rights icon and politician who said he was skipping next week’s inauguration ceremony because he saw the New York businessman’s election as illegitimate.

Trump aimed his latest Twitter blast at longtime congressman John Lewis and the mostly black district in Georgia he represents, drawing widespread criticism just days before the holiday honouring the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis, whose district includes Atlanta and surrounding areas, on Friday became the highest-profile Democratic politician to boycott Trump’s inauguration.

“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press talk show in an interview on Friday.

Trump fired back at him early on Saturday.

“Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart [not to mention crime infested] rather than falsely complaining about the election results,” Trump said on Twitter. “All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!” He followed up later in the evening with a tweet repeating his campaign theme that African Americans were living in desperately grim inner-city areas where they lacked education and jobs.

Lewis “should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the US”, he said. “I can use all the help I can get!”

Known for his decades of work in the civil rights movement, Lewis, 76, marched with King at the August 1963 rally in Washington at which King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

At least 16 House Democrats have publicly stated they will not be attending Trump’s swearing-in at the US capital next Friday, with several indicating their absence will be an act of political protest. But Lewis is the most prominent.

In his interview with NBC, he cited what he called Russian interference in the November 8 election as his reason for skipping the presidential inauguration for the first time since becoming a member of Congress in 1987.

Lewis earned a flood of support from Democratic colleagues – and a few Republicans – on Twitter.

Rhode Island representative David Cicilline said: “The incoming president is attacking an American civil rights icon during Martin Luther King Jr weekend?”

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are preparing to demonstrate nationwide as Trump prepares to take office, most notably at the Women’s March on Washington the day after the inauguration. — AFP