President Trump never called the wife of a fallen U.S. Army sergeant, even though she says the White House told her she would be receiving a call from him.
After Whitney Hunter lost her husband Jonathan Hunter during a car bomb attack in Afghanistan in August, Vice President Mike Pence met with her at Dover Air Force Base when the body returned to the U.S.
“I was extremely honored to have had Vice President Pence there,” Hunter told CNN on Wednesday. “He spent a great deal of time talking to me and it wasn’t an uncomfortable type of thing. He really was just a very genuine human being and he shared his condolences and he talked to me like he knew me forever so it meant a lot to have him there.”
Hunter said her casualty officer had been told by the White House that Trump would call her in the following days. However, she did not receive any call, but did receive a certificate Trump had signed.
“It would have been a tremendous honor to have heard that directly from the president,” she said.
“I don’t have anything negative to say directly about the president, but my husband died for our country,” she said. “He died for our nation in defense of our nation and I don’t want that to have been in vain or to have been — I don’t want it to be taken for granted and I don’t have anything negative to say about our president but I do know the difference between right and wrong. And whenever you say you’re going to do something, you’re supposed to do it.”
This Gold Star widow says she never received a phone call from Trump despite being told she would. https://t.co/D0pUqZvcbi— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 18, 2017
Trump claimed earlier this week he believed he has called all the families of those who have died and said former President Barack Obama and other former presidents didn’t make calls often.
But the Associated Press reported relatives of two soldiers who passed away did not receive a call or letter from Trump. Additionally, a third fallen soldier’s family said they did not receive a call from him.
Trump also faces backlash this week for his responses to Gold Star families, families who have lost loved ones while serving in the military.
Trump told the widow of one of the four soldiers killed in Niger this month that her husband “knew what he signed up for … but when it happens it hurts anyway,” according to Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., who was with the widow in a limousine and heard the conversation via speakerphone, although the White House denied that account Wednesday.
Four U.S. Army Special Forces were killed during an ambush of a joint patrol of U.S. and Nigerien forces along the Niger-Mali border in early October. The president faced criticism after two weeks past and he hadn’t reached out to the families. The White House announced on Tuesday that Trump finally did speak over the phone with all four of the families of the soldiers killed in Niger.
At least 20 Americans have lost their lives serving the nation since January.
