Astros' pitcher Collin McHugh calls out Trump over latest tweets

ATLANTA, GA (KTRK) -- Houston Astros pitcher Collin McHugh fired back at Donald Trump on Saturday after the president-elect sent a pair of tweets attacking civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis.

Trump zeroed in on Lewis in tweets Saturday after the Democratic representative said in an interview with NBC that he doesn't see Trump as a "legitimate president" following Russian interference in the election.

McHugh, who lives in Lewis' district during the offseason, takes exception to those tweets and called out Trump for spewing rhetoric not consistent with what he sees and lives.

The firestorm comes just before the nation celebrates the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., which as McHugh notes has also rubbed some the wrong way. Lewis was among those who walked alongside King during the civil rights movement.

Lewis is one of the last surviving central organizing figures of the U.S. civil rights movement and was beaten by police in a march for voting rights on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

McHugh later added that defending Lewis was not intended to be an anti-Trump position, but rather an anti-bullying and pro-respect stance.