|
| President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. |
NEW YORK
(AP) -- Days before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump
attempted to navigate the fallout of his flap with a civil rights leader
and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while also losing a member
of his incoming administration to accusations of plagiarism.
Trump
on Monday met with one of King's sons on the holiday marking the life
of the slain American icon just days after the president-elect attacked
Rep. John Lewis on Twitter. Lewis and the elder King were among the Big
Six leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Trump
accused Lewis, D-Ga., for being "all talk" after Lewis questioned the
legitimacy of Trump's election. The president-elect also advised the
veteran congressman to pay more attention to his "crime ridden"
Atlanta-area district. Trump's comments drew widespread criticism and
have done little to reassure those uneasy about the transition from the
nation's first black president to a president-elect still struggling to
connect with most nonwhite voters.
Martin
Luther King III downplayed the slight, saying that "in the heat of
emotion a lot of things get said on both sides." King, who said he
pressed Trump on the need for voting reform to increase participation,
deemed the meeting "constructive." King said that while he disagreed
with the president-elect's comments, he believed "at some point in this
nation we've got to move forward."
"He said
that he is going to represent all Americans. He said that over and over
again," King told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower after the nearly
hourlong meeting. "I believe that's his intent, but I think we also
have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesn't
happen automatically."
Trump, who struggled
for support from minority voters on Election Day, briefly joined King in
the lobby but ignored reporters' shouted questions about his comments
about Lewis.
Lewis had suggested that Trump's
November victory was delegitimized due to Russian interference and said
he would boycott Friday's Inauguration. More than two dozen Democratic
members of Congress have said they will sit out the Trump ceremony.
Among them is Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, who said Monday that "this
president 'semi-elect' does not deserve to be president of the United
States. He has not exhibited the characteristics or the values that we
hold dear."
The Martin Luther King holiday is
meant to honor community service and volunteerism, and many Americans,
including President Barack Obama, spend part of the day doing a service
project of some kind. Trump, who cancelled a planned trip to Washington,
spent the day inside the Manhattan skyscraper that bears his name.
Meanwhile,
conservative media commentator Monica Crowley will not be joining the
Trump administration following accusations of plagiarism, according to a
transition official.
Crowley, a frequent
on-air presence at Fox News Channel, had been slated to join Trump's
National Security Council as a director of strategic communications. On
Monday, she withdrew her name from consideration after CNN reported last
week that several passages in a 2012 book Crowley wrote were
plagiarized. Publisher HarperCollins then pulled the book.
Crowley's
retreat was first reported by The Washington Times. The transition
official confirmed the decision on the condition of anonymity because
the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Trump
has continued to lash out at his critics in the intelligence community
and questioned whether the CIA director himself was "the leaker of fake
news" in a Sunday night tweet.
The
extraordinary criticism from the incoming president came hours after CIA
chief John Brennan charged that Trump lacks a full understanding of the
threat Moscow poses to the United States, delivering a public lecture
to the president-elect that further highlighted the bitter state of
Trump's relations with American intelligence agencies.
"Now
that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national
security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have
tremendous responsibility to make sure that U.S. and national security
interests are protected," Brennan said on "Fox News Sunday," warning
that the president-elect's impulsivity could be dangerous.
Trump
shot back in a Twitter post Sunday, saying: "Oh really, couldn't do
much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the
buildup of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?"
Additionally,
European Union nations bracing for Trump's ascension showed defiance
Monday in the face of the president-elect's stinging comments on
everything from NATO and German cars to the crumbling of the EU itself.
German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the U.S.
president-elect's view that NATO was obsolete and his criticism that
European allied members aren't paying their fair share had "caused
astonishment."
Trump also said Britain's
decision to leave the 28-nation European Union would "end up being a
great thing," and he predicted that other countries would also leave.
At
a meeting of EU ministers, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
said the best response to such comments was simple - "it is the unity of
the Europeans."
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted: "We Europeans have our fate in our own hands."
