John Lewis: Trump is ‘uncaring’ about civil rights movement

Rep. John Lewis (R-Ga.) accused President Trump of being “uncaring” and unappreciative of the civil rights movement on Friday, saying the president “knows very, very little” about the struggle for equal rights.

“I think the person we have in Washington today is uncaring,” he said in an episode of CNN’s “The Axe Files” set to air Friday night. “[Trump] knows very, very little about the struggle and the history of the civil rights movement.”

In an interview with Democratic strategist and CNN analyst David Axelrod, Lewis, a civil rights icon who marched alongside the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., said that while the U.S. has made progress toward equal rights, that progress could be at risk. 

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“We have come a distance. We made progress,” he said. “But there are forces in America trying to slow us down or take us back.”

Lewis has spoken critically of Trump in the past, saying days before his inauguration that he did not consider Trump to be a “legitimate president,” because of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor.

He repeated that assertion in his interview with Axelrod, saying that he still believes “that this election was rigged” to help Trump. 

Lewis also slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Lewis said has a history of standing against equal rights. 

“I know his record, I know his history, he has a very long history of being on the other side and not on the right side,” Lewis said.