Marco Rubio perplexed Rep. John Lewis for a further late black lawmaker

• Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Saturday in a because-deleted tweet shared a picture of himself with the late Rep. Elijah Cummings when honoring Rep. John Lewis, who died Friday. 
• The two lawmakers experienced regularly been bewildered for a person one more in the course of their lifetimes, so substantially so that Lewis in 2019 joked he would grow a beard to differentiate hinself from Cummings. 
• Lewis, a civil legal rights icon, died Friday at the age of 80 just after a bout with Phase IV pancreatic cancer.
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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Saturday in a tweet shared his views about the loss of life of civil rights icon, Georgia Rep. John Lewis who died Friday soon after a bout with Phase IV pancreatic most cancers. 

“It was an honor to know & be blessed with the prospect to serve in Congress with JohnLewis a real & historic American hero. Might the Lord grant him eternal peace,” the Florida Republican wrote in a tweet Saturday afternoon.

But as a lot of on Twitter had been rapid to level out, the picture the Florida senator shared did not demonstrate him with Lewis, but as a substitute with an additional late Black lawmaker — Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings who died unexpectedly in Oct 2019 at the age of 68.

The image was even briefly Rubio’s profile graphic on Twitter ahead of it together with his tweet disappeared.

Rubio’s evident flub was not the first time that the two late congressmen had been confused for just one a different. The two African American legislators had been mistaken for each individual other so a great deal that in an April 2019 push release, Lewis wrote that he was considering escalating a beard to established him apart from his colleague from Maryland.

In a comply with-up tweet, Rubio acknowledged he “tweeted an incorrect photograph” and shared what seems to be a screenshot picture of himself with Lewis from 2017 overall look in Miami. 

—Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 18, 2020

“Just this weekend, I went to church in Maryland,” Lewis explained in a assertion last yr. “A person arrived up to me and explained, ‘Hi, Mr. Cummings!  I vote for you all the time.’ I just mentioned thank you.  What else could I say?  That is when I resolved, I must just increase a beard.”

Lewis in the statement proposed the comparisons have been due to the fact each African American lawmakers ended up bald, calling these blunders “baldist.” 

Media retailers from CBS News to Fox News have also formerly confused the two lawmakers. Earlier this yr, CBS Information confirmed a photograph of Cummings, who had now died, all through a phase on “CBS Evening News” about Lewis’ most cancers diagnosis. 

“Persons prevent me all the time and inform me they’re from Maryland,” Lewis wrote in the April 2019 assertion. “I am John Lewis, from Ga.  Rep. Cummings is a superior close friend of mine, but we are not the same man or woman.

“I regarded as having a tattoo on the back of my head, just to obvious matters up. I attempted to persuade Elijah to get one far too, but that didn’t go above so nicely. 

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