Donald Trump is doubling down on his claims that a phone call made to a Gold Star widow went a lot differently than how those on the receiving end said it did.
On Monday morning, Myeshia Johnson, the widow of fallen Sgt. La David Johnson told Good Morning America that Trump couldn’t remember her husband’s name.
Moments later he tweeted:
“I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!”
Johnson’s statement backs up the account Congresswoman Frederica Wilson gave the press last week directly following the exchange. Since then, the Trump administration has vehemently denied her recollection of the event, going as far as calling the Democratic Rep “wacky” and self promoting.
But during Johnson’s interview with morning show host George Stephanopoulos, she said “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name, and that’s what hurt me the most because if my husband is out there fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name?”
Johnson went on to say that the phone call made her cry even more and insisted that the words and tone delivered by Trump felt insensitive. Furthermore, the expectant mother is also troubled by the lack of information coming from the White House regarding her husband’s death, CNN reports.
“The questions that I have that I need answered is I want to know why it took them 48 hours to find my husband,” she told GMA. “Why couldn’t I see my husband? Every time I asked to see my husband, they wouldn’t let me.”
Last week a senior congressional aide, who was briefed on the deaths of the serviceman killed in Niger, told NBC news that the ambush by militants stemmed in part from a “massive intelligence failure.” Although the full scope of what happened is still unknown, Johnson vowed to keep pushing the administration for an account of what really happened.