Amid John Lewis spat, Donald Trump abruptly cancels visit to African-American History Museum

| 2:13 pm EST January 15, 2017
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Donald Trump has abruptly pulled the plug on his previously announced plan to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. This comes just one day after Trump publicly insulted Congressman John Lewis, a close associate of Martin Luther King, in a manner which many have deemed as racist. But naturally, Trump’s team is relying on a different excuse for the cancelation.

Congressman Lewis shared his view on Friday night that Donald Trump was not a “legitimate president” due to the Russian election hacking on Trump’s behalf. That set Trump into Twitter tirade about Lewis and his Georgia Fifth District which spanned twelve hours on Saturday.

Trump’s handlers are blaming what they call “scheduling issues” for the last minute cancelation. But it’s difficult imagine how his schedule (which currently appears to mostly consist of sitting at home and tweeting mean things) could have shifted so drastically such that he would no longer have time for tomorrow’s museum visit.

Instead it seems more likely that Trump’s team has concluded he would look bad making a high profile appearance of that nature after having teed off on John Lewis — particularly on a holiday dedicated to the civil rights Lewis and MLK fought for.