President-elect derides lifelong civil-rights icon Rep. John Lewis,
WASHINGTON — Unwilling to let criticism pass, President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday pilloried as “all talk … no action” national icon John Lewis, who was repeatedly beaten by police and nearly lost his life during protests in the long struggle for civil rights.
Trump’s Twitter comments about the Georgia congressman came in response to Lewis’ assertion in an interview Friday that he did not see Trump as a “legitimate” president because of Russian involvement in the defeat of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s comments were rife with irony. At the start of a weekend dedicated to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump was using his potent social media platform to hurl insults at a civil rights leader. And the trigger for the outburst was doubt being raised about Trump’s legitimacy, when Trump himself led a more than five-year effort to delegitimize President Barack Obama by falsely claiming that he was foreign born.
Trump also used racially freighted language when he said in Twitter comments that Lewis’ Atlanta district was “crime infested” and “falling apart.” The district, which is mostly African-American, includes many of the Atlanta area’s most prominent neighborhoods.
The furor, along with continued investigations into the Russian activities, threatened to mar a period during which an incoming president would traditionally want to unify the nation. Trump will be inaugurated Friday.
The back-and-forth began with the release of part of an interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press” in which Lewis was asked if he would try to work with Trump despite their political differences.
“I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It’s going to be hard,” Lewis said. “I don’t see the president-elect as a legitimate president.”
Lewis said he believed “the Russians participated” in Trump’s election and added: “They helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.” As a result, he said, he would not attend Trump’s inauguration.
Lewis is among a handful of lawmakers to announce they will not attend the inauguration, but the first to be called out by Trump. Lewis had already emerged as a high-profile Trump opponent on Capitol Hill; on Wednesday he appeared before a Senate committee to urge that it turn aside Trump’s designation of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as his attorney general.
“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. All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!” Trump tweeted Saturday.
Lewis’ district in fact is home to Atlanta’s airport and upscale neighborhoods; it houses corporate headquarters like those of CocaCola and Delta Air Lines. Most of the area’s colleges and universities are situated in his 5th District, where the average annual household income is $73,000.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately elaborate on the basis for Trump’s comments.
Trump’s assessment does not reflect widespread views of Lewis, a nearly universally admired figure of moral authority. Even among those who disagreed with Lewis’ criticism of Trump, there was shock at the presidentelect’s decision to hit back at Lewis.
Lewis was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, by then already a central figure in the efforts of African-Americans to secure civil rights. For years, he was repeatedly arrested and beaten at Southern protests.
In 1965, during the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala., Lewis was clubbed so severely that he suffered a skull fracture. He recovered and led other protests, and 30 years ago he was elected to Congress.
In 2011, Obama awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now,” Obama said as he presented the award.
In 2015, Obama joined Lewis and other civil rights veterans for a 50th anniversary walk over the bridge where Lewis was wounded.
Democrats on Saturday swiftly defended Lewis.
“John Lewis is an icon of the civil rights movement who is fearless in the pursuit of justice and equality,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris of California. “He deserves better than this.”
New York’s Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, declared via Twitter that “As we honor MLK, I’ll always stand by my friend, American hero @repjohnlewis. We’ll lock arms & resist any effort to roll back civil rights.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska who has long disagreed with the president-elect, tweeted a reproach to Trump: “John Lewis and his ‘talk’ have changed the world.”
Other Republican elected officials were largely silent Saturday, although party activists criticized Trump.
“It’s telling, I’m afraid, that Donald Trump treats Vladimir Putin with more respect than he does John Lewis,” tweeted the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, a former aide to Republican Vice President Dan Quayle.
In 1965, during the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala., Lewis was clubbed so severely that he suffered a skull fracture. Obama awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.