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Trump forced to backtrack over claims Obama failed to pay his respects to the families of fallen soldiers
DONALD Trump’s claim that his predecessors failed to meet families of fallen US troops was exposed as a lie yesterday.
The US president went on the defensive when asked why he hadn’t spoken about four American soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger more than a week ago.
He said: “I actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers and they’re going to be going out either today or tomorrow.”
He added: “If you look at Barack Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls.”
Pressed on that statement, he said of Obama: “I was told that he didn’t often, and a lot of presidents don’t. They write letters. President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. Some presidents didn’t do anything.”
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wasn’t criticising predecessors but “stating a fact”.
Trump himself is famed for calling “fake news” whenever anyone says anything negative about him.
But the records show his claim that past presidents didn’t reach out to the families is far from the truth.
A spokesman for George W Bush said he wrote to all the families of the fallen and called or met “hundreds, if not thousands” of their relatives.
Obama’s official photographer said he documented the president “meeting with hundreds of wounded soldiers and family members of those killed in action”.
Alyssa Mastromonaco, former deputy chief of staff to Obama, branded Trump’s statement a lie, adding: “He’s a deranged animal.”
Later, Trump cited his chief of staff, retired general John Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan in 2010. Trump said: “You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?”
But White House visitor records show Kelly attended a breakfast Obama hosted for families six months after his son died.
Former Obama spokesman Ned Price tweeted: “Kelly, a man of honour and decency, should stop this inane cruelty. He saw up-close just how much Obama cared.”