Photo: Cliff Owen/AP/REX/Shutterstock; Bettmann Archive/Getty
Vice President Mike Pence was slammed after likening PresidentDonald Trump’s recent proposal regarding hisborder walltoMartin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I have a dream” speech from 1963.
During an appearance onCBS’Face the Nationon Sunday, Pence spoke in glowing terms about the president’sproposed compromiseto end theongoing government shutdown, which would offer temporary protection for some undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in wall funding.
On Sunday’s show, which took place one day before the federal holiday honoring the late civil rights icon, Pence attempted to make a comparison between King and Trump, 72.
“One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.’ You think of how he changed America. He inspired us to change through the legislative process to become a more perfect union. That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on the Congress to do,” Pence, 59, remarked.
“Come to the table in a spirit of good faith. We’ll secure our border, we’ll reopen the government and we’ll move our nation forward as the president said yesterday to an even broader discussion about immigration reform in the months ahead,” he added.
As NBC News pointed out, King specificallyspoke out against the Berlin Wallshortly after giving the iconic speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
“Here oneither side of the wall are God’s children, and no manmade barrier can obliterate that fact,” he said in 1964, during a visit to East Berlin.
Pence’s remarks quickly generated a passionate backlash online.
“Pence invoking Martin Luther King Jr. isgrotesque,” wrote one Twitter user. “Pence cheerleads for his boss, a bigot who literally praised people who were marching alongside the KKK and Neo-Nazis. The stain of Charlottesville is precisely what MLK Jr. tried to remove from America. Trump defended it.”
Addedstand-up comic W. Kamau Bell, “Once again, Mike Pence is the walking embodiment of the saying, ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.’ ”
“Pence actually tried to compare Trump to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Let’s look for a moment at their visions,” wrote actorGeorge Takei.
“MLK: ‘I have a dream.’ Trump: ‘I have a wall,’ ” he continued, adding, “Yup, totally see it now.”
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Mike Pence and Donald Trump.Evan Vucci/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Evan Vucci/AP/REX/Shutterstock
He went on toshare a videotaken from his trip with Pence to the memorial.
“Today, it was my great honor to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial with @VP Mike Pence, in honor of #MLKDay,” he wrote alongside the clip.
Trump’s commemoration of the national holiday this year was in stark comparison to how he spent it last year.
In 2017, Trump spent MLK Dayplaying golf in Florida, after previously encouraging citizens to perform “acts of civic work and community service” on the holiday, according to Politico.
source: people.com
