GRAND FORKS, N.D.-President elect Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony is facing a boycott from a growing number of members of Congress-but North Dakota's Kevin Cramer is emphatically not among them.

"I find it very troubling for the future of our country," Cramer said of the boycott, which has been joined by more than 50 House Democrats. "This is the new liberalism-you have to agree with them 100 percent."

Shortly before noon on Tuesday, 52 House Democrats had announced they would skip the inauguration ceremony, citing concerns over Trump's rhetoric and worries about Russian meddling in the presidential election.

"I will not celebrate a man who preaches a politics of division and hate," Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and a front-runner to lead the national Democratic Party, said on social media earlier this week. "I won't be attending Donald Trump's inauguration."

Many of those boycotts have come since an exchange between Trump and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who said last week that he does not believe Trump, aided at the polls by a Russian "conspiracy," is a "legitimate president."

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Trump fired back in tweets over the weekend, calling Lewis-a civil rights icon whose skull was fractured during a protest in 1965-"all talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!"

Cramer said members of the party defeated in a presidential election don't always attend, and said he was absent from President Barack Obama's second inauguration in 2013-preferring instead time at home-but said he "didn't make a big deal" about his absence.

Asked about the exchange between Lewis and Trump, Cramer said there's "no evidence" that Russian meddling had an effect on the election.

"I think that Donald Trump's tweets about John Lewis' actions in recent history-not in 1960s history-that has some accuracy to it," Cramer said.

A report released earlier this month by American intelligence leaders said that Russia waged a campaign to sway the election, but stated that authors "did not make an assessment of the impact."

Minnesota Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, both Democrats, are expected to attend the inauguration, their offices said, as did the office of Rep. Collin Peterson, another Minnesota Democrat. However, Klobuchar's office did not respond to a question seeking comment on the boycotts, and Franken's and Peterson's offices said the lawmakers were not immediately available to respond to the question.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said she plans to attend the inauguration.

"Members of Congress have the right to make their own decisions. I'll attend the inauguration as it's a sign of the peaceful transfer of power and shows our support of the democracy that we live in and cherish," Heitkamp said in an emailed statement. "After a long election, our duty now is to come together."

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is attending, too, and said other members of Congress should attend as well to observe and be part of the peaceful transition of power. Asked for his thoughts on the exchange between Lewis and Trump, he demurred.

"I'm not going to get into that other than to say that we need to find ways to work together and create more bipartisanship," he said. "I think we all have to work with that. Ultimately, it's about getting the work of the people done."