A Gold Star father and retired Army colonel slammed President Trump’s condolence call to the widow of one of the four U.S. Army soldiers killed in Niger, saying Trump’s “inability to use the English language is really without precedent in American politics.”
In an interview with the Daily Beast, Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate and retired Army colonel who served in Vietnam, said Trump’s “ham-handed efforts to express condolences to the widow of Sgt. Johnson” is the result of a president “whose inability to use the English language is really without precedent in American politics.”
Bacevich was referencing Myeshia Johnson, whose husband, Army Sgt. La David Johnson, was killed in Niger earlier this month. The president’s phone call with Johnson has been at the center of controversy after Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., said Trump told Johnson her husband “knew what he signed up for.”
Wilson, who was close to La David Johnson, listened in on the phone call.
The retired Army colonel criticized the president for his comments to Johnson, calling them “utterly inappropriate.”
“That’s a really stupid thing to say,” Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, told the Daily Beast. “I think it’s a callous and unfeeling thing to say, even though that is true.”
“I mean, it is a fact that if you volunteer in the United States military, you understand that there is therefore some risk that you will lose your life or … suffer serious harm,” he continued. “But it’s simply utterly inappropriate to say that to a grieving widow.”
Johnson discussed her phone call with Trump in an interview with ABC on Monday morning and confirmed Wilson’s retelling of the conversation.
“What he said was — yes, the president — said that he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway,” Johnson said. “And it was, it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it. He couldn’t remember my husband’s name.”
Trump took to Twitter on Monday to address Johnson’s interview with ABC and refuted her account of the conversation.
“I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation,” he tweeted.
