President Donald Trump has lashed out at Rep. Frederica Wilson calling her ‘wacky’ and accusing the Congresswoman of lying about what he said during a Gold Star condolence call.
Trump has continued to face backlash for comments he is said to have made on Tuesday when he called the widow of an Army sergeant killed in Niger two weeks ago.
Wilson, who was sitting next to Sgt. La David Johnson’s grieving wife Myeshia when Trump called, said the President told her that her husband ‘knew what he signed up for’ by enlisting.
‘The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson (D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!’ Trump tweeted late Thursday.
President Donald Trump lashed out at Rep. Frederica Wilson on Thursday calling her ‘wacky’ and accusing her of lying about what he said during a Gold Star condolence call
Trump (above on Thursday) has continued to face backlash for comments he is said to have made on Tuesday when he called the widow of an Army sergeant killed in Niger two weeks ago
Trump’s latest comment doubled down on one of his earlier tweets from Wednesday that said Wilson had ‘totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof).’
But his claims have been contradicted by Sgt. Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who said Trump showed ‘disrespect’ to the soldier’s loved ones as they drove to Miami airport to meet his body.
‘President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter, and also me and my husband,’ she said.
White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired general who lost his own son in Afghanistan in 2010, held a press conference on Thursday backing up Trump and saying the conversation should have been ‘sacred’.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, who was sitting next to Sgt. La David Johnson’s grieving wife Myeshia when Trump called, said the President told her that her husband ‘knew what he signed up for’ by enlisting
Trump denied making the insensitive remark to Johnson’s widow, tweeting on Wednesday that the congresswoman ‘totally fabricated’ it
President Trump phoned Myeshia Johnson on Tuesday afternoon to give his condolences over the death of her husband Sgt. La David Johnson
Johnson, who is expecting the couple’s third baby in January, was pictured sobbing as she leaned over her husband’s coffin at Miami airport on Tuesday
‘I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing,’ Kelly said. ‘Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred.’
Kelly called the Florida Democrat an ’empty barrel’ who ‘makes noise,’ but he did not deny the lawmaker’s account of the phone call, as the president had this week.
Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, was among the four US troops who were killed in Niger nearly two weeks ago during an ambush
He personally absolved Trump of blame in his call to the Johnson family – a conversation that prompted Wilson to declare that the president had been disrespectful to the grieving family and couldn’t remember the soldier’s name.
‘If you’re not in the family, if you’ve never worn the uniform, if you’ve never been in combat, you can’t even imagine how to make that call,’ Kelly said.
‘I think he very bravely does make those calls.’
Trump has emphatically rejected claims that he was disrespectful.
But he started the latest controversy this week when he boasted about his commitment to calling service members’ next of kin and brought Kelly into the issue by wondering aloud if President Barack Obama had called the former Marine general after the death of Kelly’s son.
Kelly confirmed Thursday that Obama had not called him, but he made clear ‘that was not a criticism.’
‘That’s not a negative thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe all presidents call. I believe they all write.’
The late Army Sgt. La David Johnson is pictured with his mother Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who is backing up Rep. Frederica Wilson’s account of a condolence call in which Donald Trump told her the slain solider ‘knew what he signed up for’
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he was stunned to learn that Congresswoman Frederica Wilson listened in on the president’s call to a fallen soldier’s wife