More than 100 days into Donald Trump’s presidency, singer-songwriter John Legend reiterated that the President was unfit for office.
“I thought Donald Trump would make a terrible President, and I think he is proving me right every day,” Legend told Don Lemon on “CNN Tonight” on Wednesday. “I don’t rejoice in that fact. I don’t feel vindicated. I feel concern for our country. I feel concerned that we have leadership that is misguided, unprepared, bigoted and is not going to be good for the country. I want that to change as soon as possible.”
The 10-time Grammy winner is not new to politics. He campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. Speaking about the outcome of the election, Legend emphasized that he did not want to re-litigate the past election, but added that “most of our effort should be in looking forward to the 2018 elections.”
Legend spoke to Lemon from Baton Rouge after his testimony before the Louisiana house judiciary committee about criminal justice reform.
“It was about saying, how does Louisiana go from being overly punitive on crime to being smart on crime?” Legend said. “How does Louisiana go from being the number one incarcerator in the world to having a sensible policy that is more cost effective and also more humane?”
Legend added that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards is considering recommendations proposed by the state’s task force on criminal justice reform.
The artist’s criminal justice testimony came on the same day that the Department of Justice announced its decision to not file federal civil rights charges against two Baton Rouge officers involved in the shooting death of Alton Sterling.
“We’ve seen this message far too many times,” Legend said. “When police kill our citizens, our civilians, it doesn’t really matter because the police are able to do it with impunity.”
He continued, “we need our police to have better practices. We need to make sure that taking the life of a civilian, a citizen is the absolute last resort and it needs to be done with the most respect for their life as possible. We need a system that honors those lives. And when police do the wrong thing they face some justice for that.”
“When you see a decision like the Alton Sterling case, how does that leave you feeling about this new Attorney General Jeff Sessions?,” Lemon asked, to which Legend replied, “Jeff Sessions has a proven history of bigotry. A proven history of fighting against every advance of civil rights that he can fight against. He is the absolute opposite of the kind of person that we need running our criminal justice policy in the federal government.”