Trump: John Lewis got caught in ‘a pretty bad lie’

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Rep. John Lewis’s (D-Ga.) got caught in a “pretty bad lie” when he claimed that he never previously boycotted a presidential inauguration.

A 2001 report from The Washington Post indicates that Lewis also boycotted George W. Bush’s inauguration with a similar challenge to the legitimacy of his presidency.

“So he got caught, and it’s pretty bad. And it’s making him look bad, frankly,” Trump said in in a pre-taped interview with Fox News scheduled to broadcast on Wednesday.

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Since the report came to light, some have speculated that Lewis simply forgot boycotting the 2001 event.

“He conveniently doesn’t remember, how do you forget if you go to an inauguration, I can tell you, when I was at the inauguration, you don’t forget something like that,” Trump said.

“This is a transition, and a very important transition … we have to have a smooth transition, and President Obama understands that very well, and that’s why he’s been so gracious, he added.”

“And I think for [Lewis] to have grandstanded, because I think he just grandstanded … and then he got caught in a very bad lie.”

Trump also commented on a group of Democratic lawmakers that are planning to not attend the inauguration on Friday, stating that he hope they give up their tickets to those who still want to come to the event.

“As far as other people not going, that’s okay because we need seats so badly. I hope they give me their tickets, are they going to give us their tickets?” Trump asked.

Trump and Lewis have been exchanging critical remarks in recent days after Lewis said that he does not think that Trump is a “legitimate president.” He said he planned to skip the inauguration Friday and said it would be the first one he had missed as a member of Congress.

In response, the president-elect tweeted that Lewis was “all talk” and “no action.”

That criticism angered Democrats and some Republicans. Lewis was a civil rights leader in the 1960s as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was beaten by police officers at the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965, which became known as “Bloody Sunday.”