Washington, D.C.
Trump defends Niger silence: President Trump came under intense criticism this week for taking 12 days to pay tribute to the four Green Berets killed in an ambush in Niger in early October, and he provoked a furious backlash when he falsely claimed that Barack Obama and other past presidents never or rarely called the families of soldiers killed in action. The four soldiers were gunned down by Islamic extremists at the border of Niger and Mali on Oct. 4. In the days after the deadly ambush, Trump made no public statement and did not contact the slain soldiers’ families—instead tweeting attacks on the “fake news” media and playing golf. Amid growing questions about his silence, Trump made calls to the soldiers’ families this week, but was accused by Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who said she
heard the conversation on speakerphone, of telling Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s pregnant widow that her late husband “knew what he was signing up for.” Trump denied Wilson’s account over Twitter, claiming he had “proof” it was “totally fabricated.” But Johnson’s mother, who heard the call, said “President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband.” Former aides to both Obama and George W. Bush angrily rejected Trump’s suggestion that neither president contacted the relatives of soldiers killed in action during their presidencies. “That’s a f---ing lie,” tweeted one former Obama staffer, while another aide said that both presidents communicated with family members through calls, letters, visits, and meetings. Pressed on his comments, Trump invoked the son of his chief of staff, John Kelly, saying Obama didn’t call him after Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly was killed by a land mine in Afghanistan in 2010. Kelly, who never discusses his son’s death in public, was among the Gold Star families honored at a 2011 White House breakfast.