Corey Lewandowski, the onetime Donald Trump campaign manager turned K Street swamp dweller, is shocked and appalled that a Democratic congressman would challenge his former boss’ legitimacy.
In an interview on “The John Fredericks Show” this week, Lewandowski suggested Rep. John Lewis’ (D-Ga.) recent claim that Trump is not a “legitimate president” was unprecedented.
“Can you imagine just for a second if a Republican congressman would have gone out and said this about Barack Obama and continued that narrative?” said Lewandowski. “It would be an uproar in the mainstream media.”
Right Wing Watch first reported on the exchange.
Last week, Lewis expressed concern over U.S. intelligence reports on Russian interference in the presidential election that determined the efforts were intended to help Trump get elected.
“That’s not right, that’s not fair, that’s not the open democratic process,” said Lewis.
Lewis’ remarks struck some as inappropriate, and drew pushback from people on both sides of the aisle ― as well as the president-elect himself, of course.
Lewandowski apparently has a short memory when it comes to the GOP’s treatment of Obama. His own former boss, while not a congressman, was a champion of the birther movement in 2012. For months, Trump questioned whether Obama was actually born in the United States, alleging the president’s birth certificate was forged and that there had been a massive, even deadly, conspiracy to hide this information from the public.
But congressional Republicans are also to blame for allowing Trump’s racially charged delegitimization campaign to thrive. In 2009, many elected Republicans stated publicly that concerns over Obama’s birthplace had merit, while others refused to denounce the conspiracy theories.
This classic video, captured by blogger and videographer Mike Stark and published on The Huffington Post in 2009, shows just how feckless some Republicans were when it came to acknowledging that Obama was constitutionally permitted to serve.