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President Donald Trump affected a assumption with above White House admiral afterwards adage today that antecedent presidents did not accomplish buzz calls to the families of collapsed account members.
Trump was responding to a catechism about why he has not yet fabricated animadversion about the four adapted operations servicemen dead in Niger about two weeks ago. Trump, speaking from the Rose Garden in a abruptness columnist appointment with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he affairs on contacting the families soon.
“If you attending at Admiral [Barack] Obama and added presidents, best of them didn't accomplish calls. A lot of them didn't accomplish calls. I like to alarm aback it's appropriate, aback I anticipate I am able to do it,” said Trump. “They accept fabricated the ultimate sacrifice. So about I would say that I like to call. I'm activity to be calling them. I appetite a little time to pass. I'm activity to be calling them.”
Trump after absolved aback the comments accusing his predecessors of not calling families of bodies dead in combat. “I don't apperceive if he did. No, no, no,” said Trump. “I was -- I was told that he didn't often, and a lot of presidents don't. They address letters.”
But above White House administering admiral were affronted by the accusation.
"President Trump’s affirmation is absolutely wrong," a above Obama official said in a account to ABC News. "President Obama affianced families of the collapsed and blood-soaked warriors throughout his admiral through calls, letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and approved affairs with Gold Star Families at the White House and beyond the country."
“President Bush wrote all the families of the fallen, and alleged and/or met abreast with hundreds if not thousands,” a agent to above Admiral George W. Bush told ABC News.
An abettor to Admiral Bill Clinton additionally alleged the affirmation false. "He did alarm the families of collapsed soldiers while in office," the official told ABC News.
Alyssa Mastromonaco, above White House agent arch of agents and a longtime scheduler for Obama, told ABC News, “It is amoral that a admiral would cartel to anytime portray addition as unpatriotic, which is about what he was doing.”
Other Obama admiral took to Twitter to respond, including above agent civic aegis adviser for cardinal communications Ben Rhodes:
"This is an abandoned and aweless lie alike by Trump standards. Also: Obama never attacked a Gold Star family," Rhodes wrote, apropos to Trump’s altercation with the Khans, the parents of asleep U.S. Army administrator Capt. Humayun Khan.
Meanwhile, Democratic Civic Committee agent columnist secretary Brian Gabriel said in a statement, “The commander-in-chief told a absolutely capricious and abominable lie in the Rose Garden today, claiming accomplished presidents did not alarm the families of collapsed account members. Trump’s jaw-dropping, aweless lie is not based anywhere in absoluteness and is addition evidence of a built-in attraction with disturbing bottomward Admiral Obama.”
ABC Account accomplished out for animadversion from the spokespeople for above Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders after said in a statement, "The admiral wasn't criticizing predecessors, but advertence a fact."
"When American heroes accomplish the ultimate sacrifice, presidents pay their respects," she said. "Sometimes they call, sometimes they accelerate a letter, added times they accept the befalling to accommodated ancestors associates in person. This president, like his predecessors, has done anniversary of these. Individuals claiming above presidents, such as their bosses, alleged anniversary ancestors of the fallen, are mistaken."
ABC News' Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
