Trump Claims Other Presidents Didn't Contact Service Families
President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Monday that erstwhile President Barack Obama didn't call the families of fallen service members.
"If yous look at President Obama and other presidents, virtually of them didn't brand calls — a lot of them didn't make calls — I similar to brand calls when it'due south appropriate," Trump said at a news conference in the Rose Garden when asked about why he had not addressed the recent deaths of American troops in Niger.
However, a quondam senior Obama administration disputed Trump's claim.
"President Trump'due south claim is incorrect," the ex-official said. "President Obama engaged families of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout his presidency through calls, messages, visits to Section lx at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and regular meetings with Gilded Star Families at the White Firm and across the land."
Pressed past reporters later in the news conference, Trump and so admitted he didn't know what Obama's practice was in regard to the families of fallen service members.
"Sometimes it's a very difficult thing to exercise, but I do a combination of both," Trump said, referring to calling and sending letters to the families. "President Obama, I call back probably did sometimes, and perchance sometimes he didn't. I don't know. That's what I was told."
4 U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were killed in Niger on Oct. iv in an ambush by suspected Islamic militants, the Army said. The United states of america was conducting armed forces operations as part of a broad-ranging war on a variety of extremist groups in Africa.
White House Press Secretarial assistant Sarah Huckabee Sanders previously told reporters that Main of Staff John Kelly briefed Trump nearly the attack the night it took place, but the president had not talked publicly near the deaths.
Trump said his letters to the families of those soldiers have yet to exist sent but would be Monday or Tuesday and he added that he will phone call families "at some point."
Trump'due south comments touched off a firestorm on social media, including from Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former Obama staffer, who responded with an curse.
The White Business firm didn't dorsum downwards from Trump'south merits in a statement afterward Mon.
"The president wasn't criticizing predecessors, but stating a fact. When American heroes make the ultimate sacrifice, Presidents pay their respects," Sanders said.
"Sometimes they call, sometimes they send a letter, other times they have the opportunity to meet family members in person. This president, like his predecessors, has washed each of these. Individuals claiming former Presidents, such as their bosses, called each family of the fallen, are mistaken."
Obama called and wrote letters to families of fallen service members on multiple occasions, and visited them as well, co-ordinate to numerous news reports at the time.
In 2009, Obama chosen the family of Sgt. 1st Course Jared C. Monti, who was killed in June 2006 in Afghanistan helping fellow soldiers. That same yr, he consoled the grieving mother of a Marine killed by a roadside bomb in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan.
Obama's erstwhile White House lensman Pete Souza posted an image of Monti'south parents, Paul and Janet, coming together the Obamas on his Instagram on Monday following Trump's remarks.
During the terminate of his kickoff twelvemonth as president, Obama also walked through and hugged visitors at Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where fallen service members from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
The former president has publicly described the heart-wrenching task of writing letters to the families.
"As commander in chief, I have no greater responsibility than leading our men and women in uniform; I accept no more solemn obligation sending them into damage's way. I think almost this every fourth dimension I approve an operation equally president," he said in a May 2016 ceremony at Arlington.
"Every time, as a husband and father, that I sign a condolence letter. Every time Michelle and I sit down at the bedside of a wounded warrior or grieve and hug members of a Gilt Star family unit."
On Tuesday, Josh Earnest, who served every bit Obama's last White House press secretary, recalled those visits to Section sixty, explaining to MSNBC that Obama often did and so in private without informing the media.
"President Obama's preference was e'er to non seek that attention," Earnest said. "Presidents in both parties understood that when we are talking about the sacrifice that America's men and women are paying for our country, that it's not about them personally. It'south not about the president."
Former President George W. Bush also took the job of reaching out to families of dead service members as a serious and solemn "duty."
Bush often met privately with the families of service members who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and wrote extensive letters, according to The Washington Times.
"People say, 'Why would you do that?'" the president told the paper in 2008, at the end of his presidency.
"And the reply is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in primary, besides. It is my duty to exist — to try to comfort as all-time as I humanly tin can a loved one who is in anguish."
CORRECTION (Oct. xvi, 2017, 12:ten p.m.): Earlier versions of this article misstated the number of U.S. personnel killed in Niger on Oct. iv. 4 Army Special Forces soldiers were killed, not two or three.
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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-s-false-claim-about-obama-fallen-soldiers-n811206
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