WASHINGTON — On Monday, President Trump tweet-quibbled with Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson, who confirmed Rep. Frederica Wilson’s (D-Fla.) account of last week’s condolence call regarding the death of Sgt. La David Johnson in Niger.
“I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name, and that’s what hurt 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?” Johnson told ABC in her first interview. “That’s what made me upset and cry even more, because my husband was an awesome soldier.”
“I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!” Trump tweeted. He also attacked Wilson, calling the congresswoman “wacky.”
This morning saw the revival of the president’s feud with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has been unsparing in his criticism of Trump since announcing that he wouldn’t seek re-election to Congress next year.
“Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts,” Trump tweeted. “Corker dropped out of the race in Tennesse when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump. Look at his record!”
“Isn’t it sad that lightweight Senator Bob Corker, who couldn’t get re-elected in the Great State of Tennessee, will now fight Tax Cuts plus!” he added later. “Sen. Corker is the incompetent head of the Foreign Relations Committee, & look how poorly the U.S. has done. He doesn’t have a clue as the entire World WAS laughing and taking advantage of us. People like liddle’ Bob Corker have set the U.S. way back. Now we move forward!”
Corker, who tweeted earlier this month “it’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center,” this morning tweeted, “Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff.” The hashtag quickly started trending on Twitter.
The senator later told a CNN reporter that “nothing that [Trump] said in his tweets this morning was truthful or accurate and he knows it… I would hope the staff over there would figure out ways of controlling him when they know that everything he said today was absolutely untrue.”
Corker said Trump encouraged him to run again four times and said he would endorse the incumbent, who endorsed Trump in 2016.
“I don’t know why he lowers himself to such a low, low standard and debases our country in the way that he does, but he does,” the senator added. “…It’s unfortunate that our nation finds itself in this place. The president has great difficulty with the truth on many issues.”
Corker said he would not support Trump again. “He’s proven himself unable to rise to the occasion… I don’t think that’s possible.” He said the president was “absolutely not” a role model to the nation’s children.
“I think at the end of the day, when his term is over, I think the debasing of our nation, the constant non-truth telling, the name-calling, I think the debasement of our nation will be what he’ll be remembered most for and that’s regretful. And that affects young people; we have young people who for the first time are watching a president stating absolute non-truth, nonstop, personalizing things the way that he does and it’s very sad for our nation.”
Watch. The. Whole. Thing. https://t.co/c7EUMlhlfn
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) October 24, 2017
Corker said he would attend a Senate Republicans’ policy lunch with Trump today on Capitol Hill.
“I’ve just seen that President Trump has resumed his Twitter war with another member of this body: our friend from Tennessee,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor this morning. “It’s long past time for the president to quit his daily compulsion to engage in Twitter feuds, and instead get to work for the American people.”
“We have a lot of serious issues to deal with in this country. Our challenges are too entrenched and complex to be solved if the president spends his time in a meaningless and endless war of words on Twitter, today with this person, tomorrow with that,” Schumer added. “We need President Trump to roll up his sleeves and get to work, to stop tweeting and start leading. Let me repeat that. Maybe the president will hear it, for the good of America. We need our president to roll up his sleeves and get to work, to stop tweeting and start leading.”
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