White House press secretary Sarah Sanders didn’t deny Wednesday that Trump told a grieving widow of a slain soldier that “he must have known what he signed up for,” but characterized the call as “respectful.”
Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson told The Washington Post Tuesday night that she overheard Trump’s phone call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25, and that Trump’s comments made Johnson’s widow, Myeshia, tearful.
“Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof),” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “Sad!”
Sanders said Wednesday that there is no recording of the call, but that multiple officials, including chief of staff John Kelly, were present for it. When asked whether Trump was denying Wilson’s recounting of the president’s comments, Sanders said she would not get into details.
“The president’s call as accounted by multiple people in the room believed that the president was completely respectful, very sympathetic and expressed the condolences of himself and the rest of the country and thanked the family for their service and commended them for having an American hero in their family,” Sanders said during the press briefing.
Rep. Wilson also said that Trump didn’t know Johnson’s name.
“Just because the president said, ‘Your guy’…I don’t think that means he doesn’t know his name,” Sanders said when asked about this allegation. “I think it is appalling what the congresswoman has done in the way she’s politicized this issue and the way that she is trying to make this about something that it isn’t.”