A week before Donald Trump‘s inauguration in 2017, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) set his marker: Trump would not be his president, and Lewis would not afford him any of the respect that includes the workplace.
” I do not see this president-elect as a genuine president,” Lewis stated in an interview with NBC’s “Meet journalism” a week before Trump was sworn into office. “I believe the Russians took part in assisting this male get elected and they have destroyed the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”
Lewis, a congressman from Georgia since 1987, died on Friday, and leaves a tradition as one of the nation’s leading civil rights activists.
He was the very first popular Democrat to question Trump’s legitimacy as president. Though Lewis was referencing Russian disturbance in the 2016 governmental election, his remarks were likewise an action to Trump’s birtherism: For years, Trump was among the leaders pushing the racist conspiracy theory, which falsely declared that previous President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Some Democrats supported Lewis, however plenty likewise distanced themselves from him and said he had actually gone too far. They wished to give Trump– who had received fewer votes than Clinton– a possibility.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.
But Lewis was willing to stick his neck out versus Trump, both as the “conscience of the Congress” and as a member of the Democratic leadership.
Trump turned his ire on Lewis in return, tweeting out a characterization of h