Two days after Donald Trump insisted it was “totally fabricated” that he told a grieving widow that a soldier killed in an ambush in Niger “knew what he signed up for,” we’re still waiting for the “proof” he claimed to have that it was a fabrication by Rep. Frederica Wilson. And though that phone call has been a major focus of the past two days, and Trump is tweeting about it again, that proof? Still nowhere to be seen.
In fact, during those two days, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has twice refused to deny that Trump said those words, followed in non-denial by White House chief of staff John Kelly. Both Sanders and Kelly worked hard, though, to blame Wilson for having the audacity to make an issue of Trump’s cruelty, and Trump went with that in his latest denial that he said the thing no one on his staff is bothering to deny that he said:
This was Kelly’s line, too: “It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation,” which was “absolutely sacred.” A sacred and very personal moment that the grieving family invited Wilson to be a part of because she had known Sgt. La David Johnson for years. A sacred and very personal moment that Trump defiled through his disrespect. When you’ve lost someone to violence, you get to choose who to surround yourself with. The Johnson family chose Rep. Frederica Wilson and they have said that Wilson’s description of the call with Trump was accurate.
So that’s what we’ve got: Trump’s gross insensitivity and disrespect on the phone with Myeshia Johnson. Trump continuing to claim Wilson is lying, when his own press secretary and chief of staff have basically conceded she’s telling the truth. An all-out White House attack on Wilson for daring to be present during a phone call when the family had invited her to be there because they knew her and she had been a mentor to the deceased and had put the call on speaker in her presence. Are Trump and Kelly saying that Gold Star families can’t surround themselves with the people whose support they want, while they’re on the way to greet a loved one’s coffin, because it might make Donald Trump look bad?
These people are monsters.