Breitbart's Joel Pollak: John Lewis 'Ought To Have Known Better'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News, Joel Pollack, criticized Georgia Congressman John Lewis for calling in to doubt Donald Trump's election, telling Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 that the civil rights leader should not have spoken out the way he did.
"Telling people that the incoming president is illegitimate is a pretty corrosive thing to do. It sets up the other side to dislike you. It sets up your own side to believe that they should dig in and not cooperate. I think it was really a bad thing he did. It's remarkable. People said Trump shouldn't fight with him going into Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and that sort of thing, but John Lewis marched for voting rights in the 60s and here he is telling millions of Americans who voted for Trump that their votes don't count because they were part of a Russian conspiracy or whatever. It has, sort of, a disenfranchising effect on people to tell them that and I think that he ought to have known better."
He said Trump is shaking up traditionally held views and making inroads with voters not traditionally associated with Republicans.
"A panic has set in among Democrats that Trump is connecting to a wider range of people than Republicans have connected to in the past. When he improved on Mitt Romney's numbers among Hispanics and Black voters, which, admittedly, weren't that high to begin with, but you would've thought the opposite. We were told constantly by the media that Trump was going to do worse among those groups and he did better and he did better because he worked harder. He went into those communities and he spoke to black voters and he talked about helping the inner cities."
Pollack believes Trump's election victory will reset political battles all over the nation.
"I think it was American democracy at it's finest. I think, this Friday, at the inauguration, we're going to see the country really renew itself, not because of anything particular that's happened but because, in a way, this election has freed everybody to be what they want to be. Journalists can go back to the business of reporting what the government is doing rather than carrying a political message, which is, more or less, what they were doing under Obama. Political parties can go back to fighting out real issues rather than transgender bathrooms, hopefully."