Marco Rubio confused Rep. John Lewis for another late black lawmaker in a tweet honoring the 'historic American hero'
The photo was even briefly Rubio's profile image on Twitter before it along with his tweet disappeared.
In a since-deleted tweet, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote about the death of John Lewis but attached a photo of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.Rubio's apparent flub was not the first time that the two late congressmen had been confused for one another. The two African American legislators had been mistaken for each other so much that, Lewis wrote that he was considering growing a beard to set him apart from his colleague from Maryland.
In a follow-up tweet, Rubio acknowledged he "tweeted an incorrect photo" and shared what appears to be a screenshot image of himself with Lewis from 2017 appearance in Miami. "Just this weekend, I went to church in Maryland," Lewis said in a statement last year. "Someone came up to me and said, 'Hi, Mr. Cummings! I vote for you all the time.' I just said thank you. What else could I say? That's when I decided, I should just grow a beard.
Lewis in the statement suggested the comparisons were because both African American lawmakers were bald, calling such mistakes "baldist."
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