President Trump Questions Obama's Record Of Calling Gold Star Families

WASHINGTON, DC — After casting doubt on a long-held tradition among his predecessors, President Trump will call the families of four soldiers killed this month in Niger, the White House said. On Monday, Trump falsely claimed that President Obama and those before him didn't call the families of soldiers who died.

The statement came when Trump was questioned during a press conference about his failure to acknowledge the deaths of the soldier in Niger. They died when militants thought to be affiliated with the Islamic State group ambushed them while they were patrolling in unarmored trucks with Nigerien troops.

"I actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers we're talking about, and they're going to be going out either today or tomorrow," he said, meaning he wrote to the families of the fallen soldiers. He did not explain why letters had not been sent yet, more than a week after the attack.

Trump in a radio interview Tuesday suggested that Obama did not call John Kelly, a former Marine general who is now Trump's chief of staff, when his son, Marine 2nd Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

"I think I've called every family of someone who's died," Trump told Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade. "As far as other representatives, I don't know. You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?" (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

"Most of them didn't make calls," Trump said of his predecessors, specifically naming Obama. When pressed later, he said it's possible that Obama "did sometimes," but "other presidents did not call."

Trump's suggestion that his predecessors fell short in that duty brought a visceral reaction from those who witnessed those grieving encounters.

"He's a deranged animal," Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former deputy chief of staff to Obama, tweeted about Trump Monday. With an expletive, she called Trump's statement in the Rose Garden a lie.

The record is plain that presidents reached out to families of the dead and to the wounded, often with their presence as well as by letter and phone. The path to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and other military hospitals, as well as to the Dover, Delaware, Air Force Base where the remains of fallen soldiers are often brought, was a familiar one to Obama, George W. Bush and others.

Bush, even at the height of two wars, "wrote all the families of the fallen," said Freddy Ford, spokesman for the former president. Ford said Bush also called or met "hundreds, if not thousands" of family members of the war dead.

Retired Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed those contacts, tweeting: "POTUS 43 & 44 and first ladies cared deeply, worked tirelessly for the serving, the fallen and their families. Not politics. Sacred Trust."

The White House said letters would go out and calls would be made to the families of the slain soldiers in Niger on Tuesday. The family of Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, one of the soldiers, was told by an Army casualty assistance officer to expect a phone call from Trump by Tuesday evening, said Will Wright, the soldier's brother.

"He asked if the family would like to be contacted and if we'd be available to speak with the president," Will Wright said from Lyons, Georgia, where funeral services for his brother were held Sunday. "My mother and father said yes."

The soldier's family in rural southeast Georgia has received "immeasurable support from the administration" and the military since he was killed Oct. 4, Will Wright said. He added that it would be "a great honor" to hear from Trump personally.

"If I got to speak to him, I'd tell him he's got the hardest job in the world," Will Wright said. "I know his heart is heavy because that's his job, and I'd tell him not to let my brother's sacrifice deter him."

"I actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers we're talking about, and they're going to be going out either today or tomorrow," he said, meaning he wrote to the families of the fallen soldiers. He did not explain why letters had not been sent yet, more than a week after the attack.

"If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls," Trump said.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later that Trump "wasn't criticizing predecessors, but stating a fact." She argued that presidents didn't always call families of those killed in battle: "Sometimes they call, sometimes they send a letter, other times they have the opportunity to meet family members in person."
She said anyone claiming a former president had called every family was "mistaken."

However, there were few if any reports saying that former presidents called every family of a fallen soldier. Observers objected to Trump's blanket claim that they "didn't call," which was both inaccurate and elided the the fact that presidents frequently also met with families of fallen soldiers and wrote them letters.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser, further suggested Tuesday that there were many ways to console a grieving family and said that Trump doesn't always make public when he is doing that "because these are very private, very solemn sacrosanct really moments."

Bush's commitment to writing to all military families of the dead and to reaching out by phone or meeting with many others came despite the enormity of the task. In the Iraq war alone, U.S. combat deaths were highest during his presidency, exceeding 800 each year from 2004 through 2007. The number fell to 313 in Bush's last year in office as the insurgency faded. Bush once said he felt the appropriate way to show his respect was to meet family members in private.

Obama declared an end to combat operations in Iraq in August 2010 and the last U.S. troops were withdrawn in December 2011. As Obama wound down that war, he sent tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, and the death count mounted. From a total of 155 Americans killed in Afghanistan in 2008, which was Bush's last full year in office, the number jumped to 311 in 2009 and peaked the next year at 498. In all, more than 1,700 died in Afghanistan on Obama's watch.

Trump visited Dover early in his presidency, going in February with his daughter Ivanka for the return of the remains of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, William "Ryan" Owens. He did not go for those killed in Niger.

By CALVIN WOODWARD and JONATHAN LEMIRE, Associated Press. Cody Fenwick contributed to this report.

Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Jesse J. Holland in Washington and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga. contributed to this report.

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AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File