In Hollywood, Florida, hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday as the body of U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson was laid to rest. Johnson was one of four U.S. soldiers killed in an ambush during a patrol in Niger on October 4. The funeral came as President Trump and his administration continued to attack Florida Congressmember Frederica Wilson, after she reported that Trump told Sgt. Johnson’s widow Myeshia Johnson in a phone call, “He knew what he signed up for … but when it happens, it hurts anyway.” Over the weekend, President Trump called Rep. Wilson “wacky” in a series of tweets, without once mentioning La David Johnson or offering condolences to his family. Trump’s attacks came as Congressmember Wilson refuted a false claim made last week by White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly that Wilson claimed credit for securing millions of dollars in federal funding for an FBI building in Miami. Kelly made the claim as part of a personal attack in which Kelly called Wilson an “empty barrel.” This is Rep. Frederica Wilson speaking on MSNBC on Sunday.
Rep. Frederica Wilson: “I guess you could say he was a puppet of the president, and what he was trying to do was divert the attention away from the president onto me. And he basically just lied on me. And I don’t like—I don’t appreciate people lying on me.”
On Capitol Hill, the Congressional Black Caucus called on Gen. Kelly to apologize over the remarks, calling them “reckless” and “reprehensible.” At the White House, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned reporters against questioning Gen. Kelly.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you. But I think that that—if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.”