MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump has denied a congresswoman’s account that he told a grieving soldier’s widow in a phone call that the soldier ‘knew what he signed up for,’ saying on Wednesday [10-18-17] that the Democratic representative’s description was ‘totally fabricated.’
Representative Frederica Wilson, Democrat of Florida, recounted details of Mr. Trump’s call with Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s widow. On Tuesday, Ms. Wilson was in the car with the widow, Myeshia Johnson, and said she overheard the phone call from the president, who was on speakerphone. Sergeant Johnson, a Green Beret, was killed in an ambush in Niger earlier this month that killed three other soldiers and injured two.
Ms. Wilson said that during the call, the president told Ms. Johnson ‘something to the fact that he knew what he was getting into when he signed up,’ the congresswoman said in an interview on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ on Wednesday.
‘But that’s not the worst part,’ Ms. Wilson said. ‘She was crying the whole time and when she hung up the phone she looked at me and said *he didn’t even remember his name.* That’s the hurting part.’
Mr. Trump’s comments were the latest in a series of remarks he made this week drawing attention to grieving families of fallen solders.
Mr. Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday and disputed the account.
Mr. Trump did not say what proof he had.
Ms. Wilson said she stood by her description of the call.”
-Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Denies Telling Army Widow Her Husband ‘Knew What He Signed Up For’,” The New York Times online, Oct. 18, 2017