Congressman John Lewis said Thursday it would be a “serious mistake” for President Donald Trump to use the military to intervene in protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
“You cannot stop the call of history,” the Atlanta Democrat said on “CBS This Morning.” “You may use troopers. You may use fire hoses and water. But it cannot be stopped.”
Trump has threatened to deploy troops to "dominate" the streets where protests have unfolded across the nation over the last several days and, at times, turned violent. He also raised the prospect of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, a federal law that grants the chief executive sweeping powers to deploy troops to suppress civil disorder.
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said in a Rose Garden speech Monday.
The comments drew scorn from some of the nation's top ex-military officials, including Trump's first defense secretary, Jim Mattis.
As for Lewis, this is far from the first time he’s been critical of a Trump decision. The men tangled even before the New Yorker was sworn in as commander-in-chief. Lewis has opposed most of Trump’s major policies and refused to appear with him in public.
An icon of the civil rights movement, Lewis said Thursday he was moved by the size and diversity of crowds protesting racial inequalities and police brutality.
“This feels and looks so different,” said Lewis, who organized lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during in the 1960s. “It is so much more massive and all-inclusive … People now understand what the struggle was all about. It’s another step down the very, very long road to freedom, justice for all humankind.”
Lewis said the video of George Floyd's death under the knee of a Minnesota police officer made him cry and separately told NBC that he was pleased to see the charges brought against the four cops who were on the scene.
“It will send a strong and powerful message that you will not just go out and kill a person, and know that you are killing that person, without powerful action on the part of the law of the land,” Lewis said on “The Third Hour of TODAY.”
Lewis in recent days called on those who are looting and burning buildings and cars to stop. He urged protesters to organize, sit-in, vote and to practice nonviolence, a philosophy that guided him and his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. That’s prompted some activists on social media to paint him as out of touch.
Lewis, 80, has represented his Atlanta district in the U.S. House for almost 34 years. He announced late last year he was fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that claims the lives of three-quarters of the people who develop it within a year.
The congressman appeared gaunt during Thursday’s television interviews but told CBS his health is “improving.”
“I have a wonderful doctor and nurse, and everybody (is) taking good care of me. I’m very hopeful and very optimistic,” he said.
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