Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson has ‘nothing to say’ to Trump after controversial condolence call
Her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, was killed in an ambush
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Kristine Phillips and J. Freedom du Lac.
Nineteen days after her husband’s death and two days after his wrenching burial, Myeshia Johnson — the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson — said she has “nothing to say” to President Trump.
Last week, Trump called Myeshia Johnson to offer his condolences for the death of her husband, who was one of four service members killed in Niger when Islamic State militants attacked them. Trump’s call pulled the grieving widow into the center of a national controversy over how the president speaks to Gold Star families.
In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Myeshia Johnson recalled that the president said her husband “knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways.”
“And it made me cry,” she continued. “I was very angry at the tone of his voice, and how he said it.”
“I didn’t say anything,” she added. “I just listened.”
On Monday, Trump disputed Myeshia Johnson’s account, characterizing his conversation with her as “very respectful.”
Sgt. Johnson’s funeral was on Saturday in Hollywood, Fla. Photos showed relatives sobbing and members of Johnson’s battalion, the “Bush Hog” formation, breaking down in tears.
Just before her husband was buried, Myeshia Johnson kissed his casket.
But in her interview Monday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, she said she’s not fully convinced her husband’s remains are inside.
“Why couldn’t I see my husband? Every time I asked to see my husband, they wouldn’t let me,” she said. “They won’t show me a finger, a hand. I know my husband’s body from head to toe. They won’t show me anything.”
“I don’t know what’s in that box,” she continued. “It could be empty for all I know.”
As questions continue to swirl around the circumstances of Sgt. Johnson’s death, Myeshia Johnson said she has some of her own “that I need answered.”
“I want to know why it took them 48 hours to find my husband,” she told Stephanopoulos. “When they came to my house, they just told me it was a massive gunfire and that my husband, as of Oct. 4, was missing. They didn’t know his whereabouts.”
Then, she said, “he went from missing to killed in action . . . I don’t know how he got killed, where he got killed or anything.”
The deadly operation is now under U.S. military investigation.
