The mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Niger said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump “did disrespect” her son, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, and her family in a call to Johnson’s widow.
“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Cowanda Jones-Johnson, Johnson’s mother, told the Washington Post.
She said she was riding with Myeshia Johnson, her son’s widow, in a car when Trump called.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) on Tuesday said she was also in the car with Johnson’s widow. She said Trump’s call made Myeshia Johnson cry.
According to Wilson, Trump told Johnson’s widow, “He knew what was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway.”
“She was crying the whole time, and when she hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’ That’s the hurting part,” Wilson told MSNBC on Wednesday. “It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy, unnecessary. I was livid.”
Trump on Wednesday claimed Wilson “totally fabricated” his comments, and claimed he had “proof.”
“I’m not the only person that was in the car. I have proof too. This man is a sick man,” Wilson told CNN, responding to Trump’s tweet.
Asked whether Wilson’s account of Trump’s conversation with Johnson’s family was accurate, Jones-Johnson told the Washington Post, “Yes.”