President Donald Trump and a congresswoman from Florida are clashing over what the president told the widow of an American soldier killed in Niger earlier this month.
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., appeared on “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" on Tuesday night and weighed in on the deaths of four soldiers--including Sgt. La David Johnson--in Niger at the start of October. Johnson’s remains arrived in South Florida on Tuesday.
Wilson said to CNN that Trump told Johnson's widow that the soldier “knew what he signed up for."
"Basically he said, 'Well, I guess he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt,' " Wilson said, insisting she heard part of the conversation over a speaker phone with the family. "That's what he said."
Wilson also talked to WPLG in South Florida about Trump’s conversation with Johnson’s widow on Tuesday, recounting her take on what he said.
"Yeah, he said that," Wilson said. "So insensitive. He should have not have said that. He shouldn't have said it."
Trump fired back on Twitter on Wednesday morning.
"Democrat congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof),” Trump posted. “Sad!"
Earlier this week, Trump said he personally wrote and called the families of American military personnel killed in the line of duty and insisted other presidents did not always do that.
"Other presidents did not call, they would write letters, and some presidents didn't do anything," Trump said. "I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter.”
That comment drew fire from staffers who worked in the administrations of former presidents including the George W. Bush and Barack Obama White Houses.
Trump tried to jab Obama on the issue, even noting that his Chief of Staff John Kelly’s son was killed in action during Obama’s presidency and saying reporters should ask Kelly if he got a condolence call from the White House.
A longtime state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2010, Wilson has been a leading voice on Capitol Hill on expanding the war on terror into Africa.
Back in December, the House advanced Wilson’s measure to take on Boko Haram.
Wilson sponsored a measure mandating the State and Defense departments hammer our a five-year plan to aid the Nigerian government and other international partners battling Boko Haram which is responsible for 20,000 deaths and for creating a refugee crisis in Nigeria.
In recent years, Wilson has been one of the more vocal critics of Boko Haram and a high profile supporter of bringing attention to that terrorist group’s kidnaping of girls and young women. Wilson returned to that theme when her bill was passed in December.
“Boko Haram captured my attention and the headlines when the terrorist group kidnapped 276 Nigerian schoolgirls from their dormitory rooms 968 days ago,” Wilson said. “For most of the world, the Chibok girls symbolize the horror that is Boko Haram, but the damage its members have wrought goes far deeper."
