Widow Of U.S. Soldier Killed In Niger: Trump’s Call ‘Made Me Cry Even Worse’

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tony Stark, Oct 23, 2017.

  1. Tony Stark

    Tony Stark

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...c7ce4b00f08619fcb04?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313

    Widow Of U.S. Soldier Killed In Niger: Trump’s Call ‘Made Me Cry Even Worse’


    Myeshia Johnson confirmed the president told her that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”


    The widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Niger said she was “hurt” when President Donald Trump told her in a phone call last week that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”

    “He couldn’t remember my husband’s name,” Myeshia Johnson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, referring to the presidential condolence call that ignited a weeklong controversy. “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name.”

    She said Trump told her that her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, “knew what he signed up for but it hurts anyways. And it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone in his voice and how he said it.”

    The president’s call made her “very upset and hurt,” she said. “It made me cry even worse.”

    Trump quickly shot back on Twitter, saying that his conversation with Johnson was “very respectful” and that he did say the fallen soldier’s name.





    Johnson’s death has been front and center in a controversy Trump himself created when he drew attention to the fact that he hadn’t phoned
    the immediate families of all service members who had been killed during his presidency and made the erroneous claim that his predecessors didn’t make such calls.

    Trump did phone Johnson last week. Rep. Federica Wilson (D-Fla.), who was in the car with Johnson when Trump made the condolence call on Tuesday, was the first to speak out about the conversation:

    “Sarcastically he said: ‘But you know he must have known what he signed up for,’” Wilson told NBC6. “How could you say that to a grieving widow? I couldn’t believe ... and he said it more than once. I said this man has no feelings for anyone. This is a young woman with child who is grieved to her soul.”

    Johnson’s aunt, who was also in the car, backed Wilson up last week. (The aunt, who raised Johnson, was identified earlier as Johnson’s mother.) Trump on Wednesday accused Wilson of fabricating what he said, claiming he had proof.

    “Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated,” Johnson’s widow, who is pregnant, confirmed on Monday. “What she said was 100-percent correct. The phone was on speakerphone. Why would we fabricate something like that?”

    She said she has nothing further to say to Trump.




    Johnson was killed during an ambush in Niger on Oct. 4, along with three other Special Forces troops. It took authorities two days to find his body, leading to questions about what occurred during the attack and whether the U.S. and Niger soldiers with him on the mission left him behind or tried to come back to rescue him.


    Johnson’s widow said she’s still desperately seeking answers to what happened.

    “When they came to my house they just told me that it was a massive gunfire and my husband as of Oct. 4 was missing,” she said. “They didn’t know his whereabouts, they didn’t know where he was. And a couple of days later they told me he went from missing to killed in action. I don’t know how he got killed, where he got killed, anything.”

    [​IMG]

    Johnson kisses her late husband’s coffin at a graveside service in Hollywood, Florida, October 21, 2017.
    She said she still hasn’t been able to see her husband’s body.

    “They told he was in a severe wrap and I wouldn’t be able to see him. I know my husband’s body from head to toe and they won’t let me see anything. I don’t know what’s in that box, it could be empty from head to toe.”

    Approximately 1,000 people attended Johnson’s funeral on Saturday.

    The administration is reportedly rush-delivering condolence letters to families of slain soldiers amid the controversy. Three Gold Star families told The Atlantic that they hadn’t received correspondence from Trump until last week.

    In fact, the White House apparently had to scramble to find contact information for Gold Star families who lost a service member since January in order to determine who Trump hadn’t yet contacted, according to an internal Defense Department email obtained by political news site Roll Call.
     
  2. Tony Stark

    Tony Stark

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/evidence-contradicts-trump-claims-calls-soldiers-families

    Evidence contradicts Trump claims on calls to soldiers’ families
    10/23/17 08:00 AM

    By Steve Benen


    Donald Trump’s timing could’ve been better. When Sgt. La David Johnson’s remains arrived at Dover Air Force Base, the president was golfing. On Saturday, Johnson was laid to rest, and Trump spent part of Saturday morning tweeting not about the fallen hero ahead of his funeral, but taking juvenile shots at Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who mentored Johnson and is close with his family.

    And then the president went golfing again.

    Complicating matters is Trump’s demonstrable dishonesty on his interactions with the families of American soldiers killed in action. As part of his self-aggrandizing boasts last week, the president told Fox News Radio, “I have called, I believe, everybody – but certainly I’ll use the word virtually everybody.” The Associated Press found soon after that of the 20 families who lost loved ones since Trump took office, half had not heard from the president.

    Roll Call reported late last week that the White House apparently knew that Trump’s boast wasn’t true.

    In the hours after President Donald Trump said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.


    The email exchange, which has not been previously reported, shows that senior White House aides were aware on the day the president made the statement that it was not accurate – but that they should try to make it accurate as soon as possible, given the gathering controversy.


    Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.


    What’s more, The Atlantic reported over the weekend that, in a mad dash to deal with the president’s false claim, the Trump administration has begun “rush-delivering letters from the president to the families of service members killed months ago.”

    In other words, Trump World is trying to make true what clearly was not true.


    At a certain level, I can appreciate the fact that this president’s strained relationship with reality makes developments like these predictable. To be at all familiar with Trump’s record is to instinctively suspect the truth is the opposite of what he says it is.

    But even for Donald Trump, communications with the families of fallen soldiers is a strange thing for a president to lie about.
     
  3. elderado

    elderado

    Maybe she should be asking Barry why her husband was there.
     
    TreeFrogTrader and Clubber Lang like this.
  4. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    According to right wingers here, the congresswoman, is a lying c**t though.
     
    Tony Stark likes this.
  5. She is.
    So what’s your point?
     
  6. [​IMG]
     
    elderado likes this.
  7. Tony Stark

    Tony Stark


    No,she shouldn't.
     
  8. So the left now has their black Cindy Sheehan to exploit. Christmas comes early.
     
    Tom B and ThunderThor like this.
  9. Off Course Pino doesn't think Johnson is a hero ,
    he likes soldiers who weren't captured or killed, remember !!!!

    Same for this loser below who tried to bail out of paying child support.


    GOP ex-congressman insists Myeshia Johnson is fair game: ‘We have a right to attack her’


    [​IMG]

    A Republican former congressman defended President Donald Trump for accusing a grieving military widow of lying.

    Myeshia Johnson confirmed Rep. Frederica Wilson’s account of her phone call with Trump, who she said never said her slain husband’s name and suggested Sgt. La David Johnson should have expected he could be killed in action.

    The president then responded on Twitter and insisted his conversation with Johnson was “very respectful” and that he spoke the slain soldier’s name “from beginning, without hesitation!”

    Trump was roundly criticized for his tweets — but former lawmaker Joe Walsh rushed to his defense.

    upload_2017-10-23_21-10-36.png
    “Trump never attacked her,” Walsh tweeted.

    “Yes, Myeshia Johnson has a right to speak,” he added. “But now that she’s gotten political, we have a right to attack her.”

    Walsh lost his Illinois congressional seat in 2012 after attacking Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs in a helicopter crash, of talking too much about her military service.
     
  10. Actually, yes she should given that she now wants to jump into the political arena. Her husband died doing his job, and right along side his brothers. There is no greater honor for a combat veteran. I salute his dedication and steadfastness to fight to the death.
    Trump tried to covey that via a phone call to a grieving widow. As fate would have it a leftist political hack was listening in, and not being one to miss an opportunity to exploit this poor woman, the hack pounced. The media, always eager to do their level best in the exploitation game came onboard drooling at the chance to take their cheap shot. The entire situation makes me sick to my stomach. The exploitation of the grief stricken , all for political gamesmanship is the absolute bottom in politics. Not surprising who we find there.
     
    #10     Oct 23, 2017
    Wallet and Tom B like this.