US President Donald Trump has pulled bereaved military families into a painful political fight of his own making, on Tuesday going so far as to cite the death of his chief of staff’s son in Afghanistan to question whether former US president Barack Obama and other presidents did enough to honor the military dead.
He has boasted that “I think I’ve called every family of someone who’s died,” although the Associated Press found relatives of two soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received a call or a letter from him.
The White House said Trump on Tuesday telephoned the families of four soldiers who were killed in Niger nearly two weeks ago, the issue that had spawned the controversy this week.
“He offered condolences on behalf of a grateful nation and assured them their family’s extraordinary sacrifice to the country will never be forgotten,” the White House said in a statement.
Contending that Trump’s propensity for a political fight has drifted into “sacred” territory, US Democrats and some former government officials have expressed anger at his comments that he, almost alone among presidents, called the families of military members killed in war. They accused him of “inane cruelty” and a “sick game.”
For their part, Gold Star families, which have lost members in wartime, told reporters of acts of intimate kindness from two former US presidents — Obama and George W. Bush — who consoled them.
Trump’s posture has been defensive in recent days after he was criticized for not reaching out immediately to relatives of the soldiers killed in Niger.
On Monday, Trump said he had written letters that had not yet been mailed; his aides said they had been awaiting information on the soldiers before proceeding.
Then Trump stirred things further on Tuesday on Fox News Radio, saying: “You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?”
John Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, is Trump’s chief of staff. His son, Second Lieutenant Robert Kelly, also a marine, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
John Kelly was not seen at Trump’s public events on Tuesday.
A White House official said Obama did not call John Kelly after his son’s death, but did not say whether the former president reached out in some other fashion.
White House visitor records showed John Kelly and his wife attended a breakfast Obama hosted for Gold Star families six months after their son died.
A person familiar with the breakfast — speaking on condition of anonymity — said the Kelly family sat at former US first lady Michelle Obama’s table.
Obama aides said it was difficult this many years later to determine if he had also called Kelly, or when.
“Kelly, a man of honor & decency, should stop this inane cruelty. He saw up-close just how — & how much — Obama cared for the fallen’s families,” former Obama spokesman Ned Price said on Twitter.
US Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs when her helicopter was attacked, said Obama did right by the fallen.
“I just wish that this commander-in-chief would stop using Gold Star families as pawns in whatever sick game he’s trying to play here,” she said.
Trump initially claimed in a news conference on Monday that only he among US presidents made sure to telephone families.
Obama might have done so on occasion, Trump said, but “other presidents did not call.”
He on Tuesday equivocated as the record made plain that his characterization was false.
“I don’t know,” he said of past calls, but added that his own practice was to call all families of the war dead.
However, that has not happened.
US Army Specialist Christopher Michael Harris, 25, of Jackson Springs, North Carolina, was killed along with another soldier in a suicide attack in Afghanistan in August.
His widow, Brittany Harris, said the White House did offer to set up a call with Trump, but “it fell through” and no letter came from the president.
She figured Trump was too busy with the approach of Hurricane Harvey and North Korea woes.
Army Specialist Etienne Murphy, 22, of Snellville in metropolitan Atlanta, died on May 26 after an armored vehicle he was in rolled over in Syria. No letter or telephone call came from Trump to the parents or his widow.
“Because it was noncombat, I feel like maybe he thought it was an accident, it doesn’t matter, but my son was in Syria,” said Sheila Murphy, his mother.
She said the army casualty assistance officer assigned to her family told her a letter would be coming from the White House.
Nearly five months later, no letter has arrived, she said, adding that she finally wrote a letter to Trump about six weeks ago to tell him that she and her husband still suffer from deep grief, but there has been no reply.
“It wasn’t a mean letter,” she said. “I was telling him I know he’s a grandfather. I told him I’m trying to be here for my grandkids, but some days I don’t want to live.”
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