Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in an ambush in Niger, broke her silence on ABC News’s Good Morning America on Monday about President Trump’s controversial condolence phone call.
Johnson said Trump’s call — which came while she was on the way to receive her husband’s body — made her “very, very upset and hurt. Very. It made me cry even worse.”
Trump, she said, said “that he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway. And it made me cry ’cause I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said he couldn’t remember my husband’s name,” Johnson said on ABC News
“The only way he remembered my husband’s name is because he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him and that’s when he actually said La David. I heard him stumblin’ on trying to remember my husband’s name and that’s what hurt me the most, because if my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name?” she added.
Not long after, Trump fired back on Twitter:
The phone call sparked a week of controversy — still ongoing — after Rep. Frederica Wilson, who was in the car with the family when the call came in, said that Trump told the widow her husband knew what he was signing up for.
Trump’s chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, attempted to defend the president’s remarks. Not long after, Trump contradicted Kelly, saying he never said what Wilson alleged.
“The president said that the congresswoman was lying about the phone call,” anchor George Stephanopoulos said.
“Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated. What she said was 100% correct,” Johnson replied. “Why would we fabricate something like that?”
When Stephanopoulos asked if there was anything she’d like to say to the president right now, she replied, “No. I don’t have nothing to say to him.”
