Prez vs. pol over his words to tragic GI’s widow
President Trump on Wednesday got caught in another firestorm with a Gold Star family after accusing a lawmaker of lying when she said he was disrespectful to the widow of a Special Forces soldier killed in Africa — even though the hero’s mom confirmed the family was upset by Trump’s remarks.
Trump lashed out at Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson on Twitter early Wednesday and later from the White House, insisting that the Democrat had “fabricated” his comments to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson — and that he had “proof.”
“I didn’t say what that congresswoman said — and she knows it — and she now is not saying it,” Trump said.
Asked what proof he had, he replied, “Let her make that statement again and then you’ll find out.”
Wilson said she was in a car with the Johnson family en route to Miami International Airport, where the soldier’s casket was arriving on Tuesday, when Trump called.
She claimed she was listening on the speaker phone when the president told Myeshia Johnson that her husband “knew what he signed up for . . . but when it happens, it hurts anyway.”
Despite Trump’s denials, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, the soldier’s mother, told The Washington Post that she, too, heard his remarks while in the car and that the president “did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband.”
Wilson said Myeshia Johnson, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, began sobbing during the fiveminute phone call.
“And the worst part of it: when he hung up, you know what she turned to me and said? She said he didn’t even remember his name,” Wilson said.
Also asked what “proof ” the president had, his spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there were several staffers on hand when Trump made the call, including retired Gen. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff.
She said Kelly, whose son Lt. Robert Kelly was killed fighting in Afghanistan iin 20102010, was fine with Trump’s comments.
”He thought the call was respectful and he thought that the president did the best job he could under those circumstances to offer condolences on the part of the country,” Sanders said.
She called Wilson “disgusting” and “appalling” for her comments.
She also defended Trump from Wilson’s claim that he didn’t know the soldier’s name because Trump referred to him as “your guy.” ”Just because the president said ‘your guy,’ I don’t think that means that he doesn’t know his name,” she said.
Sgt. Johnson, 25, and three fellow soldiers were killed on Oct. 4 in Niger in an ambush by militants believed to be linked to ISIS.
In 2016, Trump criticized Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq. They had panned Trump’s proposed Muslim ban and backed Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.
Trump even said that, like them, he had made “sacrifices.”
TRUMP SAYS: ’ I didn’t say what that congresswoman said — it.’ and she knows it — and she now is not saying