Lawmakers of color expected a culture war from Donald Trump. Just not in sports.

WASHINGTON — The old congressman was scuttling his way through the tunnel. Pap, pap, pap. The tap of his penny loafers was the only music you could hear that time of night. The old congressman was late. But he was taking his time. This week had been long enough. And there is no one alive in a position to tell John Lewis what to do.

Lewis was searching for his words. The second most-tenured black congressman was trying to pull together what happened the last few days. The president had found the latest targets for his vitriol — the NFL and NBA and, more specifically, the black athletes within the sports who had led protests or spoken out against the president. Congress would have to react, but how?

Meanwhile, the world seemed in chaos. Rhetoric between North Korea and President Donald Trump escalated. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were without power. Health care was on the line for Americans. Yet despite all this, the president seemed transfixed on one main topic: protesting black athletes and the leagues in which they play.

“I’m somewhat shocked he would go down this road,” Lewis said.

For a week, Trump issued statement after statement that seemed aimed at Black America. On Friday at a senatorial campaign rally for failed-candidate Luther Strange, Trump referred to mostly black protesters in the NBA and NFL as sons of bitches. He insisted a private company, the NFL, act and change how its employees conduct themselves at work while violating no First Amendment laws. He vilified them for protesting for black lives.

“I wasn’t preoccupied with the NFL,” Trump said during a press conference with the Prime Minister of Spain. He doubled down on the fact that his feud with the NFL was something that deserved his time and wasn’t distracting him from his legislative agenda. “I was ashamed of what was taking place.”

These are the moments that make Lewis reflect.

He first came to Washington in 1961. “I was 21 years old. I had all my hair and was a few pounds lighter,” he said. He followed the road from the Capitol to the South. He spent years as a Freedom Rider, working with different groups to fight Jim Crow and the racism that makes up so much of the fabric of American history.

It led him to get his skull bashed in by Alabama State Troopers in Selma. Before many of his trips, he remembers setting a precedent, one that has leaked into the NFL for the last two seasons.

“We kneeled before we left on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We kneeled in courtrooms and courthouse steps. We kneeled when Dr. King came here in 1957. We kneeled on the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. I think the president needs to read a little history,” Lewis said.

Trump’s comments threw Congress into action, but there was already work being done. Many comments from the Capitol weren’t as reactive as they might have seemed.

This had been on the minds of many. This was building for months as more and more protesters took to the streets and the sidelines, troubled by a re-rise of white supremacist groups emboldened by the presidency. Yes, some of these lawmakers were positioning themselves in the middle of what seemed a never-ending news cycle. But some have been waiting for this moment.

Between political pandering and television talking points, lawmakers of color have been expecting this war with Trump. Throwing verbal spears at America’s black, athletic elite? OK, that’s not how they drew it up. But a culture war against black folks? Well, ask around: That’s been on the horizon forever.

But the old congressman had spent too much time reminiscing for one day. He had to go. But before he left, he thought for a moment. Were black and brown lawmakers in the federal government prepared for this fight? Hell, were progressive-minded Americans ready?

“Well,” Lewis said, taking time to go over everything that’s happened. “I think the American people have received what they voted for.”

By the time Barbara Lee, a black Democratic lawmaker from Oakland, had caught up on the news, it almost seemed too late. Trump’s base was already taking victory laps. The assumption from the right was that it’d won. Trump attacked predominantly black protestors from two professional sports leagues, and the prevailing message had shifted.

This was no longer about police brutality and systemic racial injustice to Trump and his followers. They had pivoted the argument to the idea that this was about the flag and patriotism. The NFL had aided this pivot by joining the protesters, but only along the lines of “unity.” Colin Kaepernick’s original message seemed lost.

Republican lawmakers had also jumped in.

“What I don’t think people seem to get is when you do it on the flag and the anthem, it looks like you’re protesting against the ideals of America, the patriotism, the people that’ve put their lives on the line or given their life for the country,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said.

“I think it’s misguided to protest the anthem and the flag because people don’t see it, on some political issue,” Ryan continued. “They see it as protesting against the people who have given their lives for this country and the ideals that we all strive for.”

“It’s totally inappropriate,” Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican told CNBC. “What they ought to do is show their respect for the people who helped secure the country that they have.”

”Every man, woman, child in this country should stand for the national anthem,” Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican -- and the only black Republican in the Senate — said after Toomey. Scott is the only member of the Senate who has personally discussed issues of race with Trump. “That should go without question.”

The rhetoric was unsurprising to Lee, though this time, it felt personal. The Warriors are her district’s team. She’s ridden championship parade floats through the Oakland summers with Curry and the gang. The MVP hand-wrote a letter to Lee for her mother Massey, a super-fan, after she died. To disrespect them was to disrespect her, especially given she’d already invited the club to come to Congress when an invitation to the White House was still on the table.

What did unsettle her was watching the president and other white groups, the NFL included, co-opt the language of protest and transform it into a stunt. Unity? That’s not what Colin Kaepernick knelt for. Brotherhood? Michael Bennett didn’t get cuffed, a knee put into his neck and a gun to his ear for that. The flag? Black folks are as American as anyone else in a country they built.

“Challenging them as patriots, thinking they aren’t living up to what America prides itself as being, he’s almost saying they’re un-American,” Lee said. “That’s the implication. It’s a very hard moment. I know what these players must feel that their president has the audacity to take them on in this way. It’s outrageous.”

It all felt a part of the Trump roadmap, where the ideals of white supremacy are co-opted in the rhetoric of “taking America back.” The NFL helped him, framing protests about institutional injustice as a “unity” exercise, all to avoid speaking about how the Kaepernick effect had led to a second year of protest and dissent.

Lee noticed this shift. The president has become a master of spin in an age of never-ending coverage and tweets and used it to keep turning America against American athletes. Lee believes it’s intolerable.

“That’s disgusting,” she said. “This is to keep people from talking about the real issues. Equality and justice isn’t a priority for him. The black community seems to understand there’s a heck of a lot to lose, and the president is leading that charge.”

Lee’s colleague, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader of the House and a representative of San Francisco, is also pulling for the Warriors to come to Congress. She sees the spin the White House is using. To her, the president is the “deflector-in-chief.”

The NFL and NBA discussions were perfect distractions for a president under fire. Anything not to talk about the legislative agenda, the countless Americans without power in Puerto Rico or those nervous about the safety of their health care.

“It’s unfortunate,” Pelosi said. “As the president of the United States, this is a unifying opportunity for him. I just can’t answer for what’s in his soul or in his heart about these things. I do know what he says is not unifying for our country.”

Lawmakers of color mirrored the messages of Lee and Pelosi. Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican-born, rookie congressman from New York, said Trump “spent his time calling people names and trying to pontificate to America with a hollow soul.” Ted Lieu, a California Democrat and veteran, said Trump’s “unfortunately the same person, maybe even worse, than the person he was when he campaigned.” Cedric Richmond, the New Orleanian head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said “no one says” what Trump said.

“In his mind, and how he thinks, it’s an easy sell to get his numbers back up to the base he appeals to by creating division,” Richmond said. “He’s saying: ‘Look at those ungrateful, African-American football players that make millions but don’t respect our flag or our country or our heritage.’ Well, it’s everyone’s heritage.”

It is all of this that had Lee invigorated by week’s end. The language shift, the attacks on protest, the death threats sent to players and their families, was possible in any version of America but Trump supplied the spark. But, Lee said, what people are forgetting is the patriotism it takes to dissent.

If anything, these players should be applauded, she thinks. They’re more American than the president trying to delegitimize them.

“The president isn’t winning this,” she said. “This is more than a skirmish. This is a divisive tactic that he’s using.” She paused. “We’re ready. We know who he is.”

Back in March, Richmond and many black lawmakers on the Hill traveled to the White House to meet with Trump. There, they handed him a 125-page policy book. In it was the detailed concerns of the caucus about criminal justice reform, racial profiling, and police brutality.

It’s unclear if the president ever read it. Richmond wrote in a letter this week that their offerings were “completely disregarded.” So Richmond and the rest declined to meet with Trump again in June.

For Richmond, it was unsurprising that Trump would have a problem with the protesting players, as he had not seemed to care at all for the concerns of black lawmakers.

“None of the forms of protest over injustice and inequality have been deemed acceptable,” Richmond said. “They criticized Black Lives Matter. They criticized the Mothers of the Movement. Now they criticize taking a knee. The question then becomes: Is it the method of the protest or is it the message of the protest?”

Richmond said there’s a “real concern” if this is the right job for Trump. Lee is tired of the president shining a light on himself instead of the “heroes” of this moment. Lewis still backs the power of protest; he just wishes the president would pick up a history book.

The culture war the president started against two predominantly black leagues and its protesters is changing by the day. But the lawmakers who’ve been fighting to keep black people and their concerns relevant in this fight have come prepared.

Congressmen and players have been working together since last season to attempt and create criminal justice reform policy. But any work they’ve done seems like it could be upended, at any moment, with one tweet or tirade.

“He should stay out of the NFL’s business, especially as the president of the United States, especially as he is standing up for people to be fired after calling them sons of bitches,” Richmond said of Trump.

He then thought back to our previous president, playing a game black folks, progressives, and resistors play every so often, in a world where the current president feeds on and legitimizes white supremacy in an attempt to delegitimize America’s first black president. This game is maddening every time.

“Close your eyes,” Richmond said. “Now imagine if Barack Obama called people S.O.B’s.”