Trump criticizes late John Lewis for not attending his inauguration and claims HE’S done more for black Americans
DONALD Trump criticized Rep. John Lewis for missing his inauguration - and claimed he has done more for black Americans than the late civil rights icon.
Duing an interview with Axios that aired on Monday, the president was asked about how history would remember the legend, to which Trump replied: "I don't know, I really don't know."
The congressman and people's champion passed away last month at his home in Atlanta at aged 80 after losing his battle to pancreatic cancer.
helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was named its chairman in 1963, making him one of the Big Six at a tender age alongside Martin Luther King.
But Lewis will best be remembered for leading 600 protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965, an event that became known as the Bloody Sunday march.
The reporter went on to ask Trump: "Do you find him impressive?"
The president replied that he could not "say one way or the other."
"I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive, but no, 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.
"And again, nobody has done more for black than I have. He should've come. I think he made a big mistake."
Later in the interview, Trump acknowledged that Lewis "was a person that devoted a lot of energy and a lot of heart to civil rights" but added "there were many others, also."
Trump did not attend Lewis' or pay any public respects to him after his passing.