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Trump Snubs Civil Rights Leader John Lewis: ‘I Don’t Know’ How History Will Remember Him

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This article is more than 3 years old.
Updated Aug 4, 2020, 11:00am EDT

TOPLINE

In a sprawling Axios interview that spanned the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter and mail-in voting, Donald Trump snubbed civil rights icon John Lewis, saying that the late congressman never came to his inauguration and that nobody has done more for Black Americans than he has while president.

KEY FACTS

Trump’s interview with Axios, filmed on July 28, zigzagged from his handling of the pandemic, which he once again labeled the “China virus,” his recent well wishes for Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and protests in Portland, which he claimed were being dominated by “Antifa” and “anarchists.”

Toward the end of the 35-minute sit-down with Axios’ national political correspondent, Jonathan Swan, Trump was asked about how history would remember civil rights icon John Lewis, who died last month from pancreatic cancer.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know John Lewis; he chose not to come to my inauguration. I never met John Lewis.”

Asked if he found Lewis “impressive,” Trump responded: “Uh . . . I can’t say one way or another—I find a lot of people impressive, I find a lot of people not impressive. . . . He didn’t come to my inauguration; he didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches—and that’s okay, that’s his right. Again, nobody has done more for Black Americans than I have.”

He added that Lewis had devoted “a lot of energy and heart” to civil rights, but “there were many others also.”

The day before the interview was filmed, Trump said he would not visit Lewis while he lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda.

Key background

Lewis was one of more than 25 Democrats to boycott Trump’s inauguration in 2017, after the then president-elect claimed in tweets that Lewis was “All talk, talk, talk, no action or results.” Lewis, in a rebuke of the incoming president, had said beforehand that he did not see Trump as a “legitimate president.” Unsurprisingly, Trump’s portrayal of protesters in Portland as “anarchists,” “terrorists” and “Antifa” during the Axios interview was opposite to Lewis’ reaction, who in a posthumous essay wrote that he was “inspired” by the anti-racism protests that swept across the nation following the killing of George Floyd.

Additional info

Trump also claimed during the interview that, apart from Abraham Lincoln, he had done more for Black Americans than any other president—including Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964. Trump called Floyd’s death a “disgrace,” but added that he doesn’t know why Black men are more likely to be killed by police, and said he “hoped” Black people were not treated differently than white people by police.

Trump also defended his recent well wishes to Maxwell, who was arrested last month and charged with recruiting and grooming underage girls to be abused by Epstein and his associates. “Her friend or boyfriend [Epstein] was either killed or committed suicide in jail. She’s now in jail. Yeah, I wish her well. I’d wish you well, I’d wish anybody well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty,” Trump told Swan. 

The President also reiterated claims that widespread mail-in voting would result in cheating. Researchers have debunked those claims as baseless.

Big number

155,000 Americans have died of coronavirus. During the interview, Trump said the virus was “under control as much as we can control it,” despite the U.S. seeing the biggest daily increase in deaths since May, last week. At one point during the interview, Trump pulled out a series of graphs appearing to show U.S. deaths as a proportion of cases instead of deaths as a proportion of population. On Sunday, the U.S. recorded the smallest number of new daily cases in weeks.

Further reading

John Lewis Has The Final Word In Posthumous Essay: ‘Democracy Is Not A State. It Is An Act.’ (Forbes)

Trump Says He Will Not Visit Body Of John Lewis Lying In State (Forbes)

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