Trump ally dismisses Rep. John Lewis: ‘John who?’

Trump campaign supporter David Clarke dismissed Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Saturday for his boycott of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opening over President Trump’s attendance. 

“John who?” Clarke, the former sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis., asked on Fox News when asked about Lewis’s highly publicized decision to not attend the museum opening Saturday.

“John Lewis — he was bloodied on the Selma bridge, sheriff, when he was trying to protest voting rights and organizing sit-ins,” host Eboni Williams responded.

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Williams was explaining Lewis’s work in the civil rights movement, where he was injured in a clash with police during the 1965 Selma voting rights march, when Clarke interrupted to bash the congressman over the boycott. 

“John Lewis has become one of the most irrelevant members of Congress,” Clarke asserted, accusing the Democratic lawmaker of poor leadership in his Georgia district.

“Look, no one cares what John Lewis is doing, he’s been reduced to being a caricature in that he has to pull a political stunt like this, he can’t even honor the civil rights museum opening.” 

Lewis announced Thursday that he would not attend the museum’s opening in Jackson, Miss., due to Trump’s planned attendance, citing the president’s “hurtful policies” and rebuke of NFL player protests of the national anthem over racial justice issues this year.

“He has to pull a political stunt like this to get news coverage, that’s how bad this is,” Clarke said.

Williams pushed back on Clarke’s dismissal of the congressman.

“Sheriff let me say this to you, for you to say that nobody cares about John Lewis is inaccurate, because I assure you that there are many people across this country that absolutely do care about him,” Williams said. “This museum opening is about the civil rights of American citizens, so when it comes to his record on that, Sheriff Clarke, I think it’s pretty undisputed.”

Lewis has been a vocal critic of Trump. Earlier this year, after Lewis said he didn’t think Trump was a “legitimate president,” Trump tweeted that the congressman should “spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested).”

Clarke argued during his Fox News appearance that Trump “is winning hearts and minds quietly and slowly throughout black America, as they are willing to give him a chance as he has during the campaign, so I think the event will be better off without those people there.”