‘Cowardly @RealDonaldTrump Isn’t Fit to Polish Hero @Repjohnlewis’s Boots’ Says One NY Democrat
Currently 31 Democratic lawmakers will boycott Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, most in response to the president-elect’s Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend’s attacks on Rep. John Lewis. Some cite Trump’s attacks on women and minorities in general, others cite their constituents as their motivation for skipping the historic day, while others point to the intervention of Russia in the election, as Rep. Lewis did. And one cited a wedding as reason she is not attending.
Congressman John Lewis, (D-GA) in a clip of an interview released Friday, did not personally attack Trump. Rather, he cited Russia’s actions in the election as his reason for refusing to attend the inauguration of America’s 45th president.
“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,” Lewis said. He also noted a “conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others.”
UPDATE:Â Growing List Now Includes Nearly One in Four House Democrats Who Are Boycotting Trump Inauguration
On Saturday, the House Democrats posted this simple statement to Facebook:
Including Rep. Lewis, there are 31 Democrats boycotting Donald Trump’s inauguration:
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR):
Rep. Judy Chu (CA):
Rep. Lacy Clay (MO):
Fusion reports Rep. Clay “decided to sit out Trump’s big day — he’ll be ‘back at home in St. Louis speaking to school kids,’ his spokesman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on January 13.”
Rep. Katherine Clark (MA):
Rep. Yvette Clark (NY):Â
Rep. Steve Cohen(TN):
Rep. John Conyers (MI):
Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR)
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA):
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (NY):
Rep. Dwight Evans (PA):
Rep. Marcia Fudge (OH):
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (IL):
First congressman to publicly announce he would not attend Trump’s inauguration.
“The reason I am not going is that I cannot bring myself to justify morally or intellectually the immense power we are placing in that man’s hands,” Gutiérrez said.Â
I could not look at my wife, my daughters or my grandson in the eye if I sat there and attended as if everything that candidate Donald Trump had said about The women, about The Latinos, or The Blacks, The Muslims or any of the other things he said in his speeches and Tweets – that any of that is OK or erased from my memory.
We all heard the tape when Donald Trump was bragging – bragging! – about grabbing women by their private parts without their consent. It is something I can never un-hear…
Sorry. That is never OK. It is never just locker room talk. It is offensive and, if he ever actually did it, it is criminal.
Rep. Jared Huffman (CA):
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA):
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (AZ):
“My absence is not motivated by disrespect for the office or motivated by disrespect for the government that we have in this great democracy, but as an individual act — yes, of defiance, at the disrespect shown to millions and millions of Americans by this incoming administration and by the actions we are taking in this Congress,†Rep. Grijalva said on the House floor, according to Fusion.
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA):
Rep. Ted Lieu (CA):
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA):
“I acknowledge the fact that he is the incoming president, but I’m not in the mood to celebrate that fact,†Lofgren told the LA Times.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY):
Rep. Mark Pocan (WI):
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA):
Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR):
“I’ll do my best to work with him when I think he’s doing the right thing for the country. But he hasn’t proved himself to me at all yet, so I respectfully decline to freeze my ass out there in the cold for this particular ceremony,†Schrader told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Rep. Jose Serrano (NY):
Rep. Adam Smith (WA)
Rep. Mark Takano (CA):
Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY):
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA):
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ):
Rep. Frederica Wilson (FL):
UPDATE:
Add Rep. Keith Ellison to the list:
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Hat tip: Fusion and The Washington Post
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