President Donald Trump downplayed the legacy of civil rights icon John Lewis in a recent interview, complaining that Lewis didn’t attend his inauguration.
“I don’t know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration,” Trump said in an interview with Axios Monday.
The president continued to dismiss Congressman Lewis during the interview saying “I can’t say one way or the other,” when asked if he thought Lewis was impressive.
“I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive,” he continued. “He didn’t come — he didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my state of the union speeches. And that’s OK. That’s his right. He should’ve come. I think he made a big mistake,” Trump said.
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when it came to the president saying ahead of his 2017 inauguration that Trump was not a “legitimate president.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms slammed the president on CNN after he reiterated during the interview that he’s done more for Black Americans than anyone else.
“He’s a narcissist and delusional,” Lance Bottoms said. “The only person who believes that is him, and to speak that in the same sentence as speaking of John Lewis is blasphemous.”
In the past, the president has held grudges against those who’ve challenged and questioned him. Trump has repeatedly attacked late senator and former presidential candidate John McCain since his death in 2018 over his role in the Justice Department investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and for saving the Affordable Care Act.
Trump also got hostile with host Jonathan Swan during the interview after Trump said the U.S. is “lower than the world” when comparing coronavirus deaths to total cases in the U.S.
When Swan told Trump the U.S. death rate is higher than most countries when compared to total populations Trump responded “You can’t do that.”