Under fire, Trump defends call to soldier’s grieving family Marchers cautiously welcome block on Trump’s travel ban
MIAMI — President Donald Trump emphatically rejected claims on Wednesday that he was disrespectful to the grieving family of a slain soldier, as the firestorm he ignited over his assertions of empathy for American service members spread into a third contentious day.
The controversy over how Trump has conducted one of the most sacred of presidential tasks generated new turmoil in the White House. After one slain soldier’s father accused the president of going back on a promise to send a cheque for $25 000, the White House said the money had been sent.
Chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son was killed in Afghanistan, was left angry and frustrated at the way the issue has become politicised. The dispute was fresh evidence of Trump’s willingness to attack any critic and do battle over the most sensitive of matters — and critics’ readiness to find fault with his words.
The aunt of an army sergeant killed in Niger, who raised the soldier as her son, said on Wednesday that Trump had shown “disrespect” to the soldier’s loved ones as he telephoned them to extend condolences as they drove to the Miami airport to receive his body.
Sergeant La David Johnson was one of four American soldiers killed nearly two weeks ago; Trump called the families on Tuesday.
Representative Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat who was in the car with Johnson’s family, said in an interview that Trump had told the widow that “you know that this could happen when you signed up for it . . . but it still hurts”. He also referred to Johnson as “your guy”, Wilson said, which the congresswoman found insensitive.
Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who raised the soldier from age 5 after his mother died, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the Democratic congresswoman’s account was correct. “Yes, the statement is true,” she said. “I was in the car and I heard the full conversation.
At the airport, widow Myeshia Johnson leaned in grief across the flag-draped coffin after a military guard received it.
“She was crying for the whole time,” Wilson said. “And the WASHINGTON DC — On the day Donald Trump was elected US president, Shereen Ali, a sophomore at Rutgers University, was working as a server at her father’s New York restaurant.
“One customer looked me in my face and said, ‘I can’t wait until this man becomes president so he can kick all the Muslims out of this country and stop all of them from coming in,’” Ali recalled.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that I wouldn’t be able to go visit my family in other countries or that they would never be able to come here,” she said.
On Wednesday, Ali joined several hundred activists in Washington, DC, to protest the Trump administration’s latest attempt to bar various individuals from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria and Venezuela.
Chanting “No ban, no wall, human rights for all!” protesters gathered in Lafayette Square, next to the White House, for speeches from campaign leaders before marching to the Trump International Hotel .
The demonstration, dubbed #NoMuslimBanEver,
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.”
Trump started the storm this week when he claimed that he alone of US presidents had called the families of all slain soldiers.
AP found relatives of four soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received calls from him. Relatives of three also said they did not get letters.
Barack Obama and George W Bush — saddled with far more combat casualties than the roughly two dozen so far under Trump — did not call all those soldiers’ families, either, but both did take steps to write, call or meet bereaved military families. was organised by a coalition of immigration and civil rights organisations.
Carrying signs and American flags, many protesters told Al Jazeera that the administration’s succession of travel bans had affected them personally.
Yusuf Muse, a US citizen who emigrated from Somalia in 1991, said that he had not seen his parents in 27 years.
After sponsoring them to come to the US, Muse decided to postpone the reunion until the government stopped trying to shut down travel from Somalia.
“It’s very upsetting,” Muse said. “Sometimes, I don’t sleep.”
Organisers had planned the march for Wednesday, the day that the third version of the president’s travel ban was scheduled to go into effect.
The event turned more hopeful than expected, however, after a federal judge in Hawaii on Tuesday temporarily halted the administration from implementing most of the restrictions.
A second similar injunction was issued earlier on
Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Corporal Dillon Baldridge who was killed in June in Afghanistan, told The Washington Post that when Trump called him, he offered him $25 000 and said he would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family. But Baldridge said it didn’t happen.
The White House said on Wednesday that a cheque has been sent. And Trump spokesperson Lindsay Walters said it was “disgusting” that the news media were casting his “generous and sincere gesture” in a negative light.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said protocol requires that the Pentagon and White House Military Office prepare and confirm an information packet Wednesday by a federal judge in Maryland.
Linda Sarsour, a prominent civil rights activist and one of the event organisers, welcomed the ruling but cautioned against complacency.
“I love Hawaii, but for me, it was a small battle won in the larger war that we’re in right now to protect immigrant communities, Muslims and refugees,” Sarsour told Al Jazeera.
“We can’t just celebrate and go home. We have to stay out fighting, and that’s why we’re here today rallying in Washington, DC.”
Unlike the administration’s first two executive orders, Trump’s latest travel ban was indefinite.
In an effort to strengthen the measure against legal challenge, the administration included country-bycountry specifications for which citizens would be barred from entry.
The ruling by Judge Derrick K Watson in Hawaii halts only the restriction on travel from Muslim-majority nations, allowing the restrictions on Venezuela and North Korea to move ahead. — AFP
before the president contacts grieving family members, a process that can take weeks.
She said Trump has made some form of contact with every family for whom he has received the appropriate information.
Trump, who tangled with a Gold Star family during last year’s presidential campaign, fiercely denied Wilson’s version of events. He declared on Twitter: “Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”
He later insisted that he “didn’t say what that congresswoman said, didn’t say it at all. She knows it”.
In private, he bitterly complained to associates about the flare-up, believing the press was eager to paint his response in a negative light, according to two people who recently spoke to him but were not authorised to comment publicly about private conversations.
His anger was echoed from the White House briefing room podium by Sanders, who said she was “appalled” by what she described as Wilson’s efforts to politicise the tragedy.
“Just because the president said ‘your guy’ doesn’t mean he doesn’t know his name,” said Sanders. She added that while no recordings of the conversation existed, several senior officials, including Kelly, witnessed the call and described Trump’s manner as “respectful” and “very sympathetic.” — AFP