Rubio uses wrong photo in Tweet honoring Lewis
In a condolence tweet honoring late John Lewis, a U.S. Representative who died Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio used a photo of former U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, another late black U.S. congressman.
Just after 3 p.m. Saturday, Rubio tweeted, “It was an honor to know & be blessed with the opportunity to serve in Congress with John Lewis a genuine & historic American hero. May the Lord grant him eternal peace.”
Lewis, 80, died late Friday night and had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, the Associated Press reported.
Rubio included a picture in the tweet and changed his Twitter profile to the same picture. But the photo wasn’t of Rubio and Lewis, it was of Rubio and Elijah Cummings, who died in October at 68.
The tweet was deleted quickly, and Rubio changed his profile picture. Yashar Ali, a Huffington Post contributor, caught the mistake and tweeted a screenshot of it.
Shortly after Rubio deleted the tweet, he made another that read, “Earlier today I tweeted an incorrect photo. John Lewis was a genuine American hero. I was honored to appear together in Miami 3 years ago at an event captured in video below. May God grant him eternal rest.”
Nick Iacovella, Rubio’s press secretary, said the original photo of Rubio and Cummings was taken by Lauren Schneiderman, a visual journalist, and mislabeled.
According to an archived version of Schneiderman’s website, the photo caption read, “Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) talks with Representative John Lewis (D-GA) at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on “ObamaCare: Why the Need for an Insurance Company Bailout?” on February 5th, 2014.’’