Another Democratic member of Congress has announced that they will not attend the inauguration of Donald Trump. California Rep. Barbara Lee said Thursday she will spend the day “preparing for the resistance.”
“Donald Trump has proven that his administration will normalize the most extreme fringes of the Republican Party. On Inauguration Day, I will not be celebrating. I will be organizing and preparing for resistance,” she said Thursday in a statement.
‘On January 20th, I will not be celebrating or honoring an incoming president who rode racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry to the White House,” the Democrat said.
She went on to highlight Trump’s words during the presidential campaign that she characterized as disrespectful to women, immigrants, Muslims and Hispanic Americans.
“After the election, many hoped the president-elect would turn toward unifying our country,” Lee said. “Instead he has shown us that he will utilize the same tools of division he employed on the campaign trail as our nation’s Commander-in-Chief.”
“The American people will never forget that when a foreign government violated our democracy, Donald Trump chose the interests of another nation over our own,” she added.
Lee joins her fellow Democratic House members, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, Jared Huffman of California, and Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, in boycotting the historic event.
“I cannot go to (the) inauguration of a man who’s going to appoint people to the Supreme Court and turn back the clock on women and turn back the clock on immigrants and the safety and freedom that we fought for them,” Gutierrez said last month on CNN’s “New Day.”