So on Oct 4 we had 4 service members killed in Niger. 12 days later the press hounded Trump about why he hadn’t made an official statement about it. He said that he had written letters to the families of the fallen that were either sent out over the weekend or would be sent out that day (Mon, Oct 16) and that he planned to call the families. He said some Presidents have chosen not to call or write but he wanted to do both. When pressed later in the conference he said he didn’t know if Obama called some of the time or not; he could only go by what his generals told him (and later John Kelly said that Obama had NOT called him when his son was killed).
The media was outraged and Obama’s people called Trump nasty names. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-call-service-members-families_us_59e4f6ace4b0ca9f4839b525
By 12:06pm that day, Joy Reid tweeted that Trump had reached a new low by saying Obama didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers.
At 10:45am Eastern time the next day Frederica Wilson spoke on the floor of the US House to commend Johnson. Then Wilson tweeted a response to Reid’s tweet, saying that it wasn’t the worst Trump would do - adding that LaDavid Johnson was her constituent and linking to the C-Span clip of her speaking in Congress.
According to https://www.local10.com/video/trump-faces-controversy-as-us-army-sgt-la-david-johnsons-remains-return-to-miami it was known that Trump was scheduled to call Johnson that afternoon.
Trump called at 4:45pm Eastern time that same day (Tues, Oct 17), and by that time Wilson had flown to Miami and was with Myesha Johnson en route to meet her husband’s casket. By 11:03pm Eastern CNN had the breaking story of their pre-recorded phone call with Frederica Wilson, claiming that the call was so bad that she asked to speak on the phone with Trump to cuss him out.
Even before the Don Lemon CNN clip at 11:03pm, Wilson was interviewed by the local Miami CNN affiliate and made her claims. (see http://ktla.com/2017/10/17/trump-told-fallen-soldiers-widow-that-he-knew-what-he-signed-up-for-florida-congresswoman-says/ ). The timestamps on the postings aren’t clear on time zones so it’s hard to say exactly when Wilson first spoke to the media, but it seems likely that she spoke to the local CNN affiliate while they were there to cover the story of the body being flown in. In the local CNN article at https://www.local10.com/news/florida/miami-dade/remains-of-u-s-army-sgt-la-david-johnson-return-to-miami Wilson had obviously been interviewed. That was originally posted at 4:25pm and updated at 12:39pm the next day. 4:25pm is before the casket even arrived so I think the timestamps must be for a different time zone. For LA’s CNN affiliate to know that the local affiliate had interviewed Frederica Wilson before the Don Lemon broadcast, it must have been published before the update on the 18th, so the original posting must have had Wilson’s claims at “4:25” - whatever time zone that was. probably Pacific time, which would make the original posting maybe 8:25pm Eastern.
Within about 2 hours of Johnson’s body arriving in Miami. Most likely the press interviewed Wilson at the airport right after filming the arrival of the casket. Classy, eh?
This does seem like a set-up to me. These seem to be people who are looking for reasons to hate Trump, and when he indicated that he was going to call they sprung into action - as a response to Trump saying that Obama may not have called all the families - a fact Trump knew to be true because General Kelly had told him so. Trump gave notice a day ahead of time that he was going to call, and the media knew that the call was expected to be that afternoon.
What stands out to me, also, is that Wilson in her House speech and almost every one of the reporters all stumbled over LaDavid’s name. And we don’t even know the names of the other three. In the one media report they spoke to the brother of one of the fallen but they didn’t give the name of the brother or the name of the fallen. I guess names are only important if you’re reporting on something that hurts Trump.
This does seem like a set-up, and it is truly sad that the lives of all our fallen military personnel seem like cheap props for political purposes.
This was the transcript from the Oct 16th press conference where this all started. When you see the whole context Trump’s comments don’t seem as braggadocious/political as they were made to appear:
QUESTION: Why haven’t we heard anything from you so far about the soldiers that were killed in Niger and what do you have to say about (INAUDIBLE)?
TRUMP: I’ve written them personal letters. They’ve been sent or they’re going out tonight. But they were during the weekend. I will, at some point during the — the period of time call the parents and the families, because I have done that traditionally.
I felt very, very badly about that. I always feel bad. It’s the toughest — the toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens, soldiers are killed. It’s a very difficult thing. Now it gets to a point where, you know, you make four or five of them in one day, it’s a very, very tough day. For me that’s by far the toughest.
So the traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I am able to do it.
They have made the ultimate sacrifice. So generally I would say that I like to call. I’m going to be calling them. I want a little time to pass. I’m going to be calling them. I have, as you know, since I’ve been president, I have. But in addition, I actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers
we’re talking about and they’re going to be going out either today or tomorrow.
(CROSS TALK)
QUESTION: Why did it take so long (ph)?
(CROSS TALK)
....... (and then later>):
TRUMP: Peter. Go ahead, Peter.
QUESTION: Just a quick question. Earlier you said that President Obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. How can you make that claim?
TRUMP: I don’t know if he did. No, no, no. I was — I was told that he didn’t often. And a lot of presidents don’t. They write letters. I do — excuse me, Peter. I do a combination of both. Sometimes it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I do a combination of both. President Obama, I think probably did sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do — all I can do is ask my generals. Other presidents did not call. They’d write letters. And some presidents didn’t do anything. But I like — I like the combination of — I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter.
(CROSS TALK)
QUESTION: Mr. President, thank you.