Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson is accusing President Donald Trump of being “insensitive” in a call to the widow of a slain U.S. soldier.
In a CNN interview, Wilson said she was on her way to the Miami airport with Myeshia Johnson to receive the body of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, when the president called. “Basically he said, ‘Well, I guess he knew what he signed up for. But I guess it still hurt.’ That’s what he said.”
“I asked them to give me the phone because I wanted to speak with him,” she said. “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.”
On Wednesday morning Trump flatly denied the accusation in a tweet:
“Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”
On CNN’s New Day Wednesday morning, Wilson rebutted those remarks by calling Trump “a sick man” and claiming the president could not recall the name of the slain veteran.
After her first interview, in a subsequent interview with ABC News, Wilson’s description of what Trump had “basically” said had become, “Yeah, he said that. To me that is something that you can say in a conversation, but you shouldn’t say that to a grieving widow. And everyone knows when you go to war, you could possibly not come back alive. But you don’t remind a grieving widow of that. That’s so insensitive.”
Wilson said she was able to hear the president’s words on a speakerphone.
Terrorists believed to be affiliated with ISIS assaulted and killed La David Johnson in Niger this month. Myeshia Johnson, who is pregnant with the couple’s child, cried and embraced her late husband’s casket Tuesday as it was removed on the airport tarmac.
Wilson admitted to ABC News that she “didn’t hear the entire conversation” and that she “just can’t remember everything that he [Trump] said. But that stood out in everyone’s, uh heart, on the call. You don’t say that.”
WATCH REP. FREDERICA WILSON PIVOT FROM FALLEN SOLDIERS TO #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS
Wilson proceeded to claim that the partial conversation that she heard was “an insult to the entire Miami Gardens community, to our entire District 24, to Miami-Dade County, and to this nation.”
The White House officially declined to comment on Wilson’s tirade.
”The president’s conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private” a Trump administration spokesman told ABC News.