Donald Trump reignited his feud with Rep. John Lewis, saying Lewis was either wrong or lied when he said this would be the first inauguration he misses. | AP Photo Trump maintains feud with Lewis: He also boycotted Bush 43

Either civil rights icon John Lewis is wrong about how many inaugurations he’s skipped since he joined Congress in 1987 or he lied about it, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday.

Lewis, a Democratic congressman representing Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview broadcast Sunday that he doesn’t “see this president-elect as a legitimate president” and that he wouldn’t attend Trump’s inauguration Friday.


“It will be the first one that I miss since I've been in the Congress,” Lewis told host Chuck Todd. “You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.”

In a pair of tweets Tuesday morning, Trump quoted the Georgia congressman, whom he had lashed out at over the weekend for questioning the legitimacy of his election.

“John Lewis said about my inauguration, ‘It will be the first one that I've missed,’” Trump wrote. “WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he ‘thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush's swearing-in....he doesn't believe Bush is the true elected president.’ Sound familiar! WP”

Trump was apparently citing a 2001 Washington Post report, which wrote that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus were boycotting George W. Bush’s inauguration.

“John Lewis, for instance, spent the day in his Atlanta district,” the Post reported on Jan. 21, 2001. “He thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush's swearing-in because he doesn't believe Bush is the true elected president.”

In an interview with Fox News, Arizona Sen. John McCain called Lewis “an American hero.” “But the fact is that this is not the first time that Congressman Lewis has taken a very extreme stand and condemned without any shred of evidence for doing so an incoming president of the United States,” he said. “This is a stain on Congressman Lewis' reputation — no one else’s.”

Madeline Conway contributed to this report.