With barely five days to go for his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump has waded into another controversy by locking horns with civil rights icon and senior Democratic lawmaker John lewis after he questioned the legitimacy of the presidential election.
In a series of Twitter posts, Trump lambasted the 76-year-old civil rights leader as an “all talk, no action” lawmaker who ought to “focus on the burning and crime-infested inner-cities of the US” instead of “falsely complaining about the election results”.
Trump’s counter-offensive came soon after lewis’s explosive comments in an interview to NBC News, remarking: “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president…I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”
The Trump attack on the black leader who was one of the top organisers of the 1963 March on Washington was expected to give a fillip to the anti-Trump protests planned for the grand inaugural on Friday.
Eighteen Democratic lawmakers, including lewis, have announced their intention to boycott the Trump’s inauguration thus far. One of them, Representative Barbara lee from California said she wouldn’t endorse a president defined by “racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry”.
“Congressman John lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart,” Trump said in one of the tweets, adding: “All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!”
A close associate of the late Martin luther King, lewis had suffered a skull fracture while leading a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama back in 1965. Several Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans as well came out in his support and they included the newly-elected Indian-African-American Senator Kamala Harris from California.
“John lewis is an icon of the Civil Rights Movement who is fearless in the pursuit of justice and equality. He deserves better than this,” Harris tweeted. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) demanded an apology from Trump.
Trump’s comment seemed ill-timed, coming as it did virtually on the eve of Martin luther King Day. About 2,000 protesters, mostly African-Americans, marched to the King Memorial in Washington on Saturday, pledging to fight for minority rights and protection of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which Trump and Congressional Republicans have vowed to dismantle.
Separately, immigrant groups held rallies in 50 cities across the US, including New York, los Angeles and Miami on Saturday in what was projected as the first major mobilisation of the movement for immigrant rights since the Trump election. “There’s a deep sense of fear and worry in immigrant communities. At the same time, there is no way we will go back to living in the shadows,” Cristina Jimenez, Executive Director of United We Dream, a national organisation, told the los Angeles Times.