Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, a soldier killed in Niger earlier in October, spoke out in public for the first time since her husband’s death on Monday morning and confirmed Rep. Frederica Wilson’s (D-FL) account of President Donald Trump’s call with Johnson.
Johnson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Trump seemed to forget her husband’s name on the call and told her that her husband knew what he was signing up for, as Wilson told the press last week.
“The President said that he knew what he signed up for but it hurts anyway,” Johnson told “Good Morning America.” “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,” she continued, adding that Trump only remembered Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s name because he had his report in front of him.
“I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name,” she said. “And that was hurting me the most because if my husband is out here fighting for our country, and he risked his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name? And that’s what made me upset and cry even more.”
“[Pres. Trump] couldn’t remember my husband’s name. … That’s what hurt me the most.” – Myeshia Johnson, widow of Sgt. La David Johnson pic.twitter.com/px5io2RbJB
— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 23, 2017
Johnson told GMA that she asked for the phone to go on speaker phone while in the car with Wilson and others so that her family could hear the call with the President. Wilson then revealed to the press that Trump told Johnson that her husband “knew what he was signing up for.”
The President has repeatedly accused Wilson of lying, even after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly essentially confirmed the congresswoman’s account of the call.
Johnson told GMA that Wilson did not fabricate Trump’s comments on the call.
“What she said was 100 percent correct,” she said.
Johnson is also still looking for answers about her husband’s death and is upset that the military has not let her see her husband’s remains.
“I don’t know how he got killed, where he got killed, or anything,” she told GMA.
My deepest condolences to Mrs. Johnson and her kids for the loss of her husband in service of our country.
I want to further apologize to her for the levels of abuse and vitriol that will be directed her way after this GMA interview.
This is what America has become today. Inconceivable.
This isn’t going to make things better.
It’s so terrible that our discourse has fallen to such a level that she felt it necessary to take this step.
Shame on Trump and Kelly.
God bless this brave and decent woman.
God fuck our commander in chief.
The fact is that we have a president who doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how to speak and conduct himself in many sensitive, interpersonal interactions with regular people.
The problem is that about two-out-of-five Americans have no problem with that, and think it’s just wonderful (maybe even God’s will!) to have the likes of Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
It isn’t bad enough how he’s continually exploited the military service he and his family have never done themselves. No, after all that wrapping himself in a gaudy fake patriotism, when it comes time to thank a widow for her husband’s sacrifice, he can’t be bothered to read the name beforehand, he can’t be bothered to do that much work. All the laziness, cynicism, and bottomless absence of empathy come together in that moment. I wish this woman didn’t have to go on TV and relive all this. But he made an issue of it.