Trump denies account of solider's widow over his condolence call
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E-mail Xinhua, October 24, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday denied a widow's account of the condolence call he made to her days after her husband was killed with three other U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month.
"I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!" Trump said on Twitter.
His tweet came shortly after Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that Trump stumbled on her husband's name during the phone call which made her "very angry."
"What he said was - yes the president - said that he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways. And I was - it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it," Johnson told the TV program.
"He (Trump) couldn't remember my husband's name," the widow said. "The only way he remembered my husband's name is because he had my husband's report in front of him and that's when he actually said La David. I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband's name. And that's what hurt me the most. "
She also confirmed Democratic lawmaker Frederica Wilson's description of the call "was 100 percent correct."
Trump denied Wilson's account last week after the congresswoman revealed Trump told the widow that her husband "knew what he signed up for."
"Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated, what she said was 100 percent correct," the widow told ABC host George Stephanopoulos.
"Why would we fabricate something like that?" she later added.
Trump tweeted last week that Wilson's account was "totally fabricated," although the fallen solider's mother said it was accurate.
Besides, Johnson, who is expecting a daughter this January, said she's still waiting for answers regarding the circumstances of her husband's death.
"The questions that I have that I need answered is I want to know why it took them 48 hours to find my husband," she told Stephanopoulos. "Why couldn't I see my husband? Every time I asked to see my husband, they wouldn't let me."
"They won't show me a finger, a hand. ...I don't know what's in that box," she said. The couple had known each other since she was six years old.
The Pentagon is still investigating into the exact circumstances of how and when Sgt. La David Johnson and three other Americans were killed in an ambush by some 50 Islamic State fighters in Niger on Oct. 4. Enditem
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