WASHINGTON — President Trump falsely asserted on Monday that his predecessor, Barack Obama, and other presidents did not contact the families of American troops killed in duty, drawing a swift, angry rebuke from several of Obama’s former aides.
Trump was responding to a question about why he had not spoken publicly about the killing of four US Green Berets in an ambush in Niger two weeks ago when he made the assertion. Rather than answering the reporter’s question, Trump said he had written personal letters to their families and planned to call them in the coming week. Then he pivoted to his predecessors.
“If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls,” Trump said during a news conference in the Rose Garden with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. “A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate.”
Trump’s assertion belied a long record of meetings Obama held with the families of killed service people, as well as calls and letters, dating to the earliest days of his presidency. Before he decided to deploy 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, Obama regularly traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the arrival of the caskets of service members.
Donald Trump continues to be a liar. This time he surpassed even his own race to the bottom. He has mortified the American people on a global level and he has reinfected pain on the families of those who gave their all.
What is wrong with this moron? Yes, I will call him a moron. (Thank you, Secretary of State Tillerson) He first failed to mention the deaths of the 4 Green Berets who were killed in Niger. His lame attempts to justify this neglect turned to lying about his predecessors and then making it all about himself. No Trump, a killed service person isn’t about YOU, its about that person who gave his or her life for the country and those families who have lost a loved one. It is our country’s loss.
How many times did Presidents Obama and Bush go off, in the night, without fanfare or press, to solemnly greet those caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base? We will probably never know. We will probably never know of the personal pain service- related deaths have caused past presidents, mainly because they didn’t trumpet their grief all over the cameras.
Donald Trump is a disgrace. He owes the American people an apology as well as all gold star families. He, in particular, owes John McCain an apology while he is at it. Shame on Donald Trump, once again.
