Donald Trump struck back at criticism leveled at him by Georgia congressman John Lewis on Saturday, suggesting the Democrat should focus on fixing his “crime infested” district, which spared an outpouring from supporters rushing to defend the civil rights icon.
In an interview on Friday, Lewis—a political elder statesman who was severely beaten during a march in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights era—dismissed Trump as not being a “legitimate president. ” Lewis was a vocal supporter of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.
Trump, however, struck back early Saturday in a series of posts on Twitter. Fresh from a controversy earlier this week, in which he responded to a critique from actress Meryl Streep, the president-elect accused Lewis of neglecting the needs of a district that was in “horrible shape” and doing little other than “talk, talk, talk. ”
According to 2015 data from the Census Bureau, Georgia’s 5th Congressional District—which is majority African-American and includes most of Atlanta—as a poverty rate of more than 17 percent, above the national average of 13.5 percent.
A 2015 report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked Atlanta as 14 among 20 of the most violent U. S. cities.
Ironically, the exchange sparked a new verbal slugfest between the president-elect and a prominent Democrat on the eve of his inauguration, and days before Martin Luther King Day. Lewis’s supporters and Democratic colleagues immediately rushed to his defense.
The real estate mogul’s response stirred a social media hornet’s nest, with legions of Lewis supporters rushing to defend the Georgia Democrat. Evan McMullin, a Republican who challenged Trump for the presidency as an independent candidate, also defended Lewis’s “selfless patriotism. “
