Donald Trump’s Twitter: John Lewis Is Latest Target Of President-Elect’s Ire On Social Media


Donald Trump has trained his Twitter sights on John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat who said last Sunday that Trump is an “illegitimate president,” the New York Times is reporting.

Speaking to Meet the Press last week, Lewis, asked whether or not he would forge a relationship with President-Elect Trump, responded that he believes in forgiveness, but added that “it’s going to be very difficult.”

“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”

Lewis cited Russian interference in the election as one reason, saying that Russian hacks and email leaks helped hand the election to Trump, according to NBC News.

“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”

Lewis has since indicated that he intends to boycott Trump’s inauguration, joining 28 other Congressional Democrats is skipping out the ceremony.

Trump responded with a series of angry tweets, saying Lewis should focus more on his home Congressional district, which includes parts of Atlanta, calling it “falling apart,” “in horrible shape,” and “crime-infested.” He also accused Lewis of being “all talk – no action or results.”

Then on Tuesday, Trump resumed his Twitter beef with Lewis, launching another series of angry tweets.

Not unexpectedly, the tweets are generating controversy.

For some observers, the timing of Trump’s tweets — the weekend before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — seemed suspect, considering that John Lewis has been active in the Civil Rights movement since the beginning, and has spent his entire career advocating for civil rights. Similarly, Trump’s claim that Lewis is “all talk” struck some as disingenuous at best, considering that Lewis literally had his skull bashed by a police officer during the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama in 1965.

Other Twitter users took exception to how Trump characterized Lewis’ district. Trump used words such as “horrible” and “crime-infested,” when in fact, Lewis’ district includes roughly three-quarters of Atlanta. And while it’s true that some sections of Lewis’ district include blighted urban areas, it also includes wealthy suburbs such as Buckhead, and commercial parts of town that include the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Trump’s assertion that John Lewis boycotted George W. Bush’s inauguration is, in fact, true, according to USA Today. Lewis’ spokeswoman, Brenda Jones, said that he believed that Bush’s election was similarly illegitimate, in light of disputed results in Florida and purported voting irregularities.

New York Times writer Mark Landler also points out that Trump may be lacking the moral high ground when it comes to questioning the legitimacy of a president; Trump, after all, was instrumental in promoting doubts about Barack Obama’s qualifications to be president. Specifically, Trump was a prominent figure in the so-called “birther” movement, which questioned the validity of Barack Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate.

Do you believe Donald Trump was right to publicly call out John Lewis on Twitter?

[Featured Image by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images]

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