Trump denies he forgot name of fallen soldier during call with widow

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is defending his call to a fallen soldier’s widow, saying he was “respectful” and did not forget the slain soldier’s name.

Trump addressed the call on Twitter Monday after Myeshia Johnson, La David Johnson’s widow, appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” She said that in Trump’s call to her last week he “couldn’t remember my husband’s name.”

Johnson added: “The only way he could remember my husband’s name was he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him and that’s when he actually said La David.”

On Twitter, Trump said: “I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!”

Johnson and three comrades died Oct. 4 in Africa in an attack.

The pregnant widow said Trump’s phone call “made me cry even worse.”

Johnson said in the “Good Morning America” interview that Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson was practically a member of their family and was among a group of people listening to Trump’s call on a speaker phone as they drove to receive her husband’s body.

“The president said that he knew what he signed up for but it hurts anyway,” Johnson said. “And it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it.”

“Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated,” Johnson said in her first interview since her husband’s death. “What she said was 100 percent correct.”

Sgt. Johnson and three comrades died Oct. 4 in Africa when militants tied to the Islamic State attacked them.

His widow said she wants to know why she hasn’t been allowed to see her husband’s body. He was buried on Saturday.