Donald Trump under fire for insensitive comments to soldier’s widow
US President Donald Trump is under fire for telling a widow of a soldier killed during an ambush that her husband “must’ve known what he signed up for.”
Sergeant La David Johnson, 25, was killed in Niger earlier this month during an ambush carried out by Boko Haram and other extremists linked to ISIS.
Florida congresswoman Rep. Frederica Wilson was in a car with Myeshia Johnson, the pregnant widow of Johnson, when Trump called her Tuesday and spoke for about five minutes, according to South Florida’s NBC affiliate.
Ms Wilson, a friend of the family who heard the conversation on speakerphone, described the president remarks as “insensitive”.
“Sarcastically he said: ‘But you know he must have known what he signed up for,’” Ms Wilson recounted to NBC6. “How could you say that to a grieving widow? I couldn’t believe... and he said it more than once. I said this man has no feelings for anyone.”
She added: "This is a young woman who has two young children, who is six months' pregnant with her third child [and] she has just lost her husband.
"She was just told that he cannot have an open-casket funeral which gives her all kinds of nightmares of how his body must look, how his face must look. And this is what the United States President says to her?
"That is not something you say to a grieving wife.”
Ms Wilson said Ms Johnson did not respond to the President because she was crying.
On Wednesday morning, Trump responded to the claims on Twitter, saying that Wilson “totally fabricated” the story. However, he is yet to provide evidence.
Wilson hit back saying several other people who were in the car also heard Trump's remark.
"I have proof too," she said. "This man is a sick man."