MILITARY/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Staffers at the National Security Council drafted and circulated a statement of condolence for President Donald Trump to make almost immediately after a deadly ambush of U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month.
But Trump never publicly issued the statement, and, some two weeks later, is now in hot water over his initial silence on the soldiers’ deaths and alleged controversial comments he made to a widow of one of the dead…
The statement was circulated among NSC officials as well as Defense Department officials. But it was never released, and it was not immediately clear why.
NSC spokesman Michael Anton declined to comment. The NSC staffer, who apparently wrote the original draft and emailed it first to herself and then others shortly after 10 a.m. on Oct. 5, hung up on a POLITICO reporter who called to ask about it.”
-Nahal Toosi, “White House staff drafted Niger sympathy statement for Trump that was never released,” Politico, Oct. 18, 2017 11:01pm