Following the death of civil rights icon John Lewis, President Donald Trump waited hours before giving any sort of statement, and when he finally did in the early afternoon, it was just a two-sentence tweet offering prayers to "he [sic] and his family."
Just before this statement went live, White House reporter Jeremy Diamond broke down why the president was unlikely to offer anything more meaningful than that — because he resented the congressman ever since he skipped Trump's inauguration.
"President Trump notably feuded with Congressman Lewis before he was inaugurated as president in January of 2017," said Diamond. "And it appears that President Trump still isn't able to get past that." He added that it is telling that Vice President Mike Pence quickly released a statement, calling him a "giant of the civil rights movement whose selflessness and conviction rendered our nation into a more perfect union."
"It's extremely rare to see the vice president put out any kind of statement before the president does," said Diamond. "And so that appears to be where things stand."
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