Trump: John Lewis needs to stop being ‘divisive’

“He did a very, very bad thing, not for me but a bad thing for the country,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News.

Lewis, D-Ga., said in an interview released five days ago that he doesn’t view Trump as legitimate due to the involvement of the Russian government in hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. That started a nearly-week-long spat between Trump and House Democrats, almost 60 of whom are following Lewis’ lead and boycotting the inauguration.

Trump said he would be willing to sit down with Lewis and talk to him about his statements, but “we’re off to a bad start.”

“We’re a very divided country and what he did was very, very divisive,” he said.

Trump said the Lewis spat is a major reason why he continues to tweet and use his personal Twitter account.

Trump said he “doesn’t like tweeting” but he uses Twitter as a way to hit back at people who attack him. If the press were more honest, he wouldn’t have to use it, he said.

“When people say misstatements about me, I’m able to say it,” Trump said. “I’m able to call them out.”

“When people misrepresent me, I have at least a way of saying it’s a false statement,” he added. “If the press were honest, which it’s not, I would absolutely not use Twitter, I wouldn’t have to.”

Trump also hit at critics who have said he’s not going to be able to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall. He reiterated the plan is now to get Mexico to reimburse the United States for a border wall.

“We’re gonna build a wall, Mexico is gonna reimburse us,” he said. “(But the) headline’s Trump’s not keeping his promise. What’s this all about? I could wait but to get the wall started sooner so we can do the deal we have to do it this way. We’re gonna have a wall in some form, Mexico is going to reimburse us and everyone’s going to be happy.”

In other areas, Trump the press is going to be kept in the White House Briefing Room for the time being, but the room is going to be too small for the amount of interest he’s going to generate. Trump said the press will realize the backlash against the idea was foolish.

“I said let’s not move it, but some people in the press will not be able to get in because there’s just too many,” he said. “There’s too many people for this small room.”

He added, “We’ll have to just pick the people who get to go into the room, I’m sure people will be thrilled about that. We want a much larger room.”