The former president condemned the GOP’s repeated false claims that voting by mail will lead to mass voter fraud.
*During his appearance on Fox News on Wednesday, President Donald Trump slammed Barack Obama’s eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis, calling it “terrible” and “angry.”
“I thought it was a terrible speech. It was an angry speech,” Trump said when asked if he thought the eulogy seemed like a campaign speech, The Hill reports. “I thought that speech was very inappropriate, very bad,” he added.
In the eulogy at Ebenezer Baptist Church last week, Obama cited challenges to voting, police brutality and the need for protest, theGrio previously reported. He urged people to be “more like John” and get into “good trouble.”
Read More: Trump evades paying respect to John Lewis: ‘He didn’t come to my inauguration’
Obama also said Lewis needed to be honored by revitalizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and called for Election Day to become a national holiday.
“If politicians want to honor John,” he said, “there’s a better way than a statement calling him a hero.”
Obama added, “Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.
The former president also condemned Trump’s repeated false claims that voting by mail will lead to mass voter fraud.
“Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision,” Obama said. “John Lewis devoted his time on this Earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what’s best in America that we are seeing circulate right now.”
Trump told Fox News that Obama’s speech highlighted the angry side of his persona that people don’t get to see.
“He lost control and he’s been really hit very hard by both sides for that speech,” Trump said. “That speech was ridiculous.”
Read More: Trump says he may suspend evictions with executive order
Lewis died last month at age 80 after a battle with cancer.
In 2011, Obama awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is one of the two highest honors that can be given to a civilian.
Obama was not the only former president in attendance for the televised goodbye to the civil rights icon. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were on hand to pay their final respects.
Trump did not attend the funeral, and he noted during a recent Axios interview that Lewis “didn’t come to my inauguration.”
“He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches,” Trump added. “And that’s OK. That’s his right. And, again, nobody has done more for Black Americans than I have.”
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