Trump tweets scoff at icon of civil rights

Citing Russia hacks, Lewis calls election illegitimate

Rep. John Lewis leaves the U.S. Capitol on Friday after an intelligence briefi ng for House members. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday criticized the longtime civil-rights leader as being “all talk” after Lewis said he won’t attend Trump’s inauguration and doesn’t consider him a legitimate president.
Rep. John Lewis leaves the U.S. Capitol on Friday after an intelligence briefi ng for House members. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday criticized the longtime civil-rights leader as being “all talk” after Lewis said he won’t attend Trump’s inauguration and doesn’t consider him a legitimate president.

Donald Trump on Saturday criticized civil-rights leader John Lewis, who suffered a cracked skull while fighting for voting rights in the 1960s, as "all talk," a day after the Georgia congressman said he doesn't consider Trump "a legitimate president."

In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press that will air in full today, Lewis said he doesn't plan to attend Trump's inauguration Friday, the first such swearing-in he'll miss since being elected to Congress in 1986. About a dozen Democratic lawmakers have said they'll skip the event.

Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts that 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!"

The sharp exchange came two days before Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday honoring the slain civil-rights leader with whom Lewis worked closely in the 1960s. Lewis, 76, was the son of sharecroppers and attended segregated schools in Alabama, according to a biography on his website.

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While in his 20s, Lewis led one of the pivotal events of the civil-rights era -- the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. On March 7, 1965, black protesters seeking voting rights were attacked by state troopers in Selma; Lewis's skull was fractured, according to the National Park Service website. Photos and news footage of the event helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Lewis told NBC that "Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy" of Hillary Clinton, adding, "I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president."

Trump has repeatedly rejected suggestions that hacking by Russia or others helped him win the presidential election.

Supporters jumped to Lewis' defense after Trump's comments, and the hashtag #standwithjohnlewis trended on Twitter.

"Ahead of #MLKday2017, let us remember that many have tried to silence @repjohnlewis over the years. All have failed," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a tweet.

Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committee's interim chairman, called Trump's comments an "attack on a living legend and a civil-rights hero."

"I say that John Lewis took action. He took action marching from Selma to Montgomery," she said at a Democratic Party meeting in Phoenix.

While some, including David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said they were uncomfortable with Lewis' assertion, Trump's outburst drew indignation from many people who pointed out the unseemliness of attacking a civil-rights leader so close to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Others ridiculed Trump's characterization of Lewis' district, which is majority black and encompasses three-quarters of Atlanta, as "horrible," "falling apart" and "crime infested." While Georgia's 5th Congressional District faces challenges typical of many urban areas, it also includes wealthy neighborhoods like Buckhead; the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson; the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Some pointed out that fighting with Lewis distracted attention from a Senate investigation, announced the day before, that will look at possible contacts between Trump's campaign team and Russia. In addition, Trump's poll numbers have slipped into uncharted depths for an incoming president, with a Gallup poll released Friday finding that about half of Americans disapprove of Trump's transition effort.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said on Twitter that Lewis is "fearless in the pursuit of justice and equality. He deserves better than this." Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who's been critical of Trump, said "John Lewis and his 'talk' have changed the world."

Lewis' congressional office didn't respond to a request for additional comment.

Other Democrats who have said they'll skip Trump's inauguration include Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts. Joining them on Saturday was Rep. Ted Lieu of California. "While I do not dispute that Trump won the Electoral College, I cannot normalize his behavior or the disparaging and un-American statements he has made," Lieu said in a statement.

Lewis is one of the few genuinely historic figures on Capitol Hill, revered by Democrats and Republicans alike. Allies of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Trump's nominee for attorney general, circulated pictures of him linking arms with Lewis at the 50th anniversary of the Selma march to fend off accusations that Sessions was hostile to civil-rights movements.

Nevertheless, Lewis testified against Sessions, declaring, "We need someone as attorney general who's going to look out for all of us, and not just some of us."

A few critics, including Axelrod, said they disagreed with Lewis' statement that Trump was not legitimate.

Still, Axelrod said of Lewis: "I honor the man he is. Honesty, integrity, courage -- these are qualities you can't buy."

The comments from Lewis prompted anger from Republicans -- even those who do not support Trump -- who said Democrats are disregarding their own breathless warnings during the campaign about the risks of failing to accept the election results.

"We listened to Democrats for the last two months of the campaign say that any suggestion that the elections weren't legitimate and the results wouldn't be accepted is dangerous and unpatriotic," said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. "Now those same people are trying to delegitimize Trump and say that he shouldn't be elected president."

Axelrod called Lewis "as genuine and decent a person as you'll find," but he worried that Democrats risk adopting an originally Republican playbook in their dealings with Trump and that it won't advance the party's interests.

"The question is how much can a democracy take of cycle after cycle of one side claiming illegitimacy," Axelrod said, alluding to questions raised by Trump and others concerning Obama's birthplace.

"I as much as anybody else appreciate the anger because I was there when we basically faced a Republican blockade, even on things that Republicans had supported in the past. I saw how destructive that was and how difficult that was."

"If you care about our democracy, how do you proceed now? Do you pay him back in kind?" Axelrod asked.

Trump is expected to visit the new National Museum of African American History and Culture on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, ABC News reported, citing people with Trump's transition team. Lewis wrote the enabling legislation to create the museum on Washington's National Mall, which opened in September.

Trump has a pattern of responding to criticism with posts on Twitter, where his followers now number almost 20 million.

On Monday the president-elect called Meryl Streep "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood" and a "Hillary flunky" after comments she made about Trump at the Golden Globes award ceremony. In December he said a union boss in Indiana "has done a terrible job representing workers" after the president of a United Steelworkers local, Chuck Jones, accused Trump of lying about how many jobs were saved from outsourcing at a Carrier air-conditioning factory.

The Lewis tweets capped a week of Twitter flurries by Trump in which he went after what he viewed as insults from various people or entities, including Clinton, CNN, the intelligence community, BuzzFeed News and Streep.

"His fundamental rule is that if you come after me in any way, I'll come after you," Axelrod noted. "He thinks he can bully people into cooperation. My experience has been that can drive people further away and make it harder.

"There are some things that he's talking about wanting to do that he's going to need Democratic votes for."

Information for this article was contributed by Craig Torres of Bloomberg News, Mark Landler and Noah Weiland of The New York Times and Abby Phillip and David Weigel of The Washington Post.

A Section on 01/15/2017

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