An increasing number of Democratic members of Congress will skip President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
More than 40 Democrats in the House have announced their boycotting the event, including Rep. John Lewis. That number increased dramatically after Saturday, when Trump tweeted that the civil rights leader is "all talk, talk, talk" after the congressman claimed Trump's election was illegitimate.
"You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong," Lewis told NBC News on Saturday. Trump's inauguration will be the first Lewis has missed since he entered Congress 30 years ago.
However, Trump noted that Lewis also skipped George W. Bush's inauguration.
BBC News quotes three Democratic House members who decided to skip Friday's event because of Trump's comments on Lewis and others.
"When you insult Rep. John Lewis, you insult America," New York Rep. Yvette Clarke said.
"For me, the personal decision not to attend Inauguration is quite simple: Do I stand with Donald Trump, or do I stand with John Lewis? I am standing with John Lewis," said Rep. Ted Lieu of California.
Others made their decision to protest the inauguration long before Trump and Lewis began feuding.
"I could not look my wife, my daughters, or my grandson in the eye if I sat there and attended, as if everything that the candidate said about the women, the Latinos, the blacks, the Muslims, or any of those other things he said in those speeches and tweets, and that all of that is okay or erased from our collective memory," Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said in December.
"I was hoping he would change and try to unify America. But it's the way he deals with what I would commonly say 'decency.' It has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal," Rep. Mark DeSaulinier, D-Calif., said on Fox Business Monday.
He said he made up his mind on Wednesday, after Trump's press conference where he had a dispute with a CNN reporter.
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