Vice President-elect Mike Pence Monday urged Rep. John Lewis to reconsider his comments about the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump's election, saying they came at a time when the nation should be coming together.
"I served with John Lewis," said Pence, a former U.S. representative from Indiana, on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"I disagreed with him on many issues, but I respect the role that he has played in the civil rights movement and the voting rights movement, and that's why I was just so disappointed that he would make the statement that he made, suggesting that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president."
Trump will be taking the oath of office on Friday and will be surrounded by four of the five living presidents while he makes his inaugural address, and that's a "testament to the world, the vibrancy of the democracy," said Pence.
"For someone of John Lewis' stature to lend credibility to the base assertions of those who question the legitimacy of this election is deeply disappointing. I hope he reconsiders it."
Trump won 30 out of 50 states, including Lewis' home state of Georgia, Pence pointed out.
"Donald Trump won more counties than any Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan," said Pence.
"The American people have spoken. This really is a time for us to set aside this narrative that is being pushed by many, this baseless narrative of illegitimacy, and see it for what it is."
Such claims are a distraction, said Pence, and are "just politics as usual," and "the American people are tired of it. It's just — it is a distraction, it is just politics as usual, and the American people are tired of it.
"I think this week is going to end up going to be a wonderful reminder to people all across this country, all across the political spectrum of what a magnificent democracy that we have. "
Pence also denounced comments made over the weekend by outgoing CIA Director John Brennan concerning Trump's understanding of Russia.
"The president-elect has a firm grasp of the reality that we face in the world, and he and I are both convinced that the failure of American foreign policy, the failure for America to stand strong on the world stage and be taken seriously has, it literally created a vacuum in which Russia and other countries have been able to overrun America's interest time after time," said Pence.
Pence, meanwhile, said he is awed by taking the oath of office on Friday.
"I think of my immigrant grandfather, I think of the privileges my family's been given, and it's hard really to describe how humbling it is for me and my family to imagine just a few short days, we'll stand on that inaugural platform, raise our right hand, and take the oath of office to serve with the 45th president of the United States," said Pence, who will be sworn in on former President Ronald Reagan's bible by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
"I had the privilege of choosing the person who would swear me in and also choosing the bible that I would do it on, and I have such enormous respect for President Reagan.
"I actually had the chance to meet him many years ago when he was still in the White House," said Pence. "I actually became a Republican because of Ronald Reagan. I like to tell people until this Friday, Ronald Reagan will be my favorite president."