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It’s been a wild eight days as President Donald Trump has feuded with a Florida congresswoman and a Gold Star family.
And the controversy, which has yet to dwindle, began when Trump was asked a week ago why he hadn’t mentioned anything about an early-October ambush in Niger that led to the deaths of four US servicemembers.
From that question stemmed days of back-and-forth between Trump, his chief of staff John Kelly, aides of past presidents, a member of Congress, former members of the military, and Gold Star families. The controversy has continued almost uninterrupted for more than a full week.
Here’s how the whole ordeal unfolded:
Monday, October 16
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During a joint press conference alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last Monday, Trump was asked about why he had not addressed the ambush in Niger.
Responding to that question, Trump said he had written letters and would call the families of the four fallen US soldiers.
But then he added the false claim that former President Barack Obama and other past presidents “didn’t make calls.”
“I call when it’s appropriate,” he said.
Trump backed off the claim slightly when pressed by another reporter at the same press conference. Soon after, former aides to Obama and other past presidents pushed back on the claim that they did not make calls to soldiers killed in action.
The criticism quickly grew, leading to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters that Trump “wasn’t criticizing predecessors, but stating a fact.”
“When American heroes make the ultimate sacrifice, presidents pay their respects,” Sanders said. “Sometimes they call, sometimes they send a letter, other times they have the opportunity to meet family members in person. This president, like his predecessors, has done each of these. Individuals claiming former presidents, such as their bosses, called each family of the fallen, are mistaken.”
Tuesday, October 17
Kevin Wolf/AP
The controversy remained when Trump did a round of interviews on conservative talk radio Tuesday morning.
It was during that round of interviews that Trump said he contacted the families of “virtually everybody” killed in the line of duty and doubled-down on his claims about his predecessors, specifically Obama.
“You can ask General Kelly. Did he get a call from Obama?” Trump told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade during an interview. Kelly’s son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
“I don’t know what Obama’s policy was,” Trump told Kilmeade. “I write letters, and I also call.”
Later that night, Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson told Miami news station WPLG that while speaking with Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the troops killed in Niger, Trump said, “He knew what he signed up for, but when it happens, it hurts anyway.”
“Yeah, he said that,” Wilson said. “So insensitive. He should not have said that — he shouldn’t have said it.”
Wilson, who mentored the fallen soldier when he was younger, later told CNN’s Don Lemon she was riding in a car with the servicemember’s family on their way to receive his body when Trump called. She said the phone was on speaker.
Wednesday, October 18
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Trump responded to Wilson on Wednesday, and the back-and-forth between them has continued since.
Wilson began Wednesday by telling MSNBC that Myeshia was “crying the whole time” and that when she hung up the phone, she looked at the congresswoman and said, “He didn’t even remember his name,” referring to her late husband.
“It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy, unnecessary. I was livid,” Wilson said.
Trump fired back at Wilson on Twitter, claiming she “totally fabricated” her account of his phone conversation with Myeshia.
“Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!” Trump tweeted, though he did not elaborate.
But the fallen soldier’s mother said Wilson’s account was accurate in an interview with The Washington Post.
“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Cowanda Jones-Johnson told The Post. Though she declined to elaborate, she said “yes” when asked whether Wilson’s account was true, The Post reported.
Speaking to the press during a White House meeting with the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Trump again pushed back on Wilson’s account of what he said.
“Didn’t say it at all,” he said. “She knows it. And she now is not saying it. I did not say what she said and I’d like her to make the statement again because I did not say what she said. I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife, who sounded like a lovely woman.”
Responding to Trump’s claim that she “totally fabricated” her account of the conversation, Wilson called him “a sick man.”
“He’s cold-hearted and he feels no pity or sympathy for anyone,” she told CNN.
Soon after that, media outlets began reporting on Trump’s contacts with other Gold Star families.
In a Post story, one Gold Star father said Trump offered him $ 25,000 after his son was killed. But the president hadn’t followed through when The Post contacted the father for its story.
Chris Baldridge, whose son, Army Sgt. Dillon Baldridge, was killed in June in Afghanistan, told The Post that Trump offered to write Baldridge a personal check for $ 25,000 and said he would work to establish an online fundraiser for the family.
“I could not believe he was saying that, and I wish I had it recorded because the man did say this,” Baldridge said. “He said, ‘No other president has ever done something like this,’ but he said, ‘I’m going to do it.'”
In a statement following The Post story, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told the publication that the check had been sent.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
