The NAACP demanded Saturday that President-elect Donald Trump apologize to Rep. John Lewis after he slammed the civil rights icon for saying that he did not consider Trump a "legitimate president."
Cornell William Brooks, the organization's president and CEO, called for the move on Twitter:
Trump bashed Lewis earlier Saturday on Twitter after the 76-year-old Georgia Democrat told NBC News that he questioned the president-elect's legitimacy in light of the Russian hacks of the party organizations during the November election.
"I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president," Lewis told "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd for an interview to be aired Sunday.
"I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected," he added. "And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton."
Lewis was among 16 Democrats as of Saturday who said that they were not attending Trump's inauguration next Friday, according to news reports.
Trump ripped the area that Lewis represents — the Fifth Congressional District, which includes Atlanta and several wealthy suburbs — as "crime-infested" before he was rebuked by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and other local officials.
In a tweet later Saturday, however, the president-elect appeared to retreat from the “crime-infested” characterization of the district and called on Lewis to help him revive the nation's inner cities:
He was among other voting-rights activists protesting with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 who were beaten by Alabama police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on what is now known as "Bloody Sunday."
In addition, ABC News reported Saturday that Trump would visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture to observe King Day on Monday.
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