Show an ad over header. AMP  

Exclusive: Trump declines to praise Rep. John Lewis, citing inauguration snub

04 August 2020
 Dan Ackermann

President Trump dismissed the legacy of the late Rep. John Lewis in an interview with “Axios on HBO,” saying only that Lewis made a “big mistake” by not coming to his inauguration.

The big picture: Trump's comments were a glaring contrast with the praise Republicans and Democrats showered upon Lewis this week, and a default to personal grudges during a week of mourning for a civil rights hero.

Driving the news: In the interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan, Trump said, “I really don't know” how history will remember the Democratic congressman. “I don't know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. ... I never met John Lewis, actually, I don’t believe.”

  • When asked if he found Lewis’ life impressive, Trump responded, “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 Americans than I have.”
  • “He should have come. I think he made a big mistake.”
  • Trump also declined to say whether he found Lewis personally impressive: “I can't say one way or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive.”

Context: The interview took place last Tuesday as Lewis was lying in state at the Capitol.

Between the lines: Lewis had made it clear what he thought of Trump. In 2017, he said he didn’t see Trump as a "legitimate president" because he believed Russia helped Trump get elected.

  • And in the documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” released shortly before his death, Lewis said, “My greatest fear is that one day we might wake up and our democracy is gone.”

Yet Lewis’ accomplishmentsfor civil rights brought virtually all other Republicans and Democrats together in mourning this week, as they paid tribute to the man whose nonviolent activism helped secure the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

  • Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all spoke at Lewis’ funeral in Atlanta on Thursday, with Obama delivering the eulogy.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quoted Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” in his tribute to Lewis at the Capitol. “History only bent toward what’s right because people like John paid the price to help bend it,” McConnell said.

Trump did allow that he wouldn’t object to the petition to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama — where Lewis and hundreds of other peaceful marchers were beaten in 1965 — after Lewis.

  • “I would have no objection to it, if they'd like to do it, would have no objection to it whatsoever,” Trump said.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.