Rep. Frederica Wilson: Trump told soldier's widow 'he knew what he signed up for'
President Trump told the widow of one of the U.S. service members who was killed in an ambush by Islamic State-linked militants in Niger earlier this month that the soldier knew “what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurts”, during a phone call Tuesday, according to a Democratic lawmaker.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., told CNN that she overheard the conversation Trump had with Army Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson, as they traveled together to meet Johnson’s body in Miami.
Myeshia Johnson, who is six months pregnant with the couple’s third child, was “very distraught” after the phone call, Wilson told CNN.
“She has just lost her husband, she was just told that he cannot have an open casket funeral which gives her all kinds of nightmares how his body must look, how his face must look, and this is what the president of the United States says to her,†Wilson told CNN’s Don Lemon.
Wilson, who told ABC Miami affiliate WPLG that Trump’s comments were “insensitive,” said she was “livid” and wanted to confront him.
“I asked them to give me the phone because I wanted to speak with him,” Wilson told CNN. “And I was going to curse him out. That was my reaction at that time. I was livid. But they would not give me the phone.”
More: Trump makes false claim that former presidents didn’t call families of slain troops
Related: 4th U.S. soldier dead after attack in Niger, U.S. officials say
Four soldiers were shot and killed while on a reconnaissance patrol in the west African country on Oct. 3. They were serving in Niger as part of an operation to train local forces to combat the Boko Haram terror group, which has ties to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.Â
Trump was widely criticized after he defended his slow public response to the deaths of the soldiers, falsely claiming that most of his predecessors never called the families of service members killed in action.
The White House, according to ABC News, declined to comment.
“The president’s conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private,” a White House official told ABC News.
CLOSE
Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan are putting President Trump on blast over his defense for waiting days before addressing the deaths of four Army Green Berets. Veuer’s Aidan Kelley has more.
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Contributing: Gregory Korte and Heidi M. Przybyla
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