In a joint news conference with Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, President Trump was asked a question regarding his lack of response to the death of the four soldiers in an ambush in Niger last week. Instead of answering the question, however, he described how he had personally reached out to the families through letters and assured that he was planning to make calls, all while comparing himself to former presidents, especially Obama, claiming that "A lot of them didn't make calls. I like to call when it's appropriate."
However, Trump did not consider the fact that Obama had held hundreds of meetings with the families of fallen soldiers throughout his two terms as president. Although Obama has declined to make a comment, this lack of acknowledgement has been noticed and criticized by many of Obama's former advisers on Twitter, including his former national security adviser who called out Trump's feud with the parents of fallen soldier Humayun Khan last year.
When the President was later asked a follow-up question about his response regarding Obama, he seemed to take a lighter note with his opinion by claiming that he was unsure whether or not he did or did not make the calls. "President Obama, I think, probably did [reach out to families] sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn't. That's what I was told. All I can do is ask my generals."
I personally believe that it was unprofessional of Trump to try and switch up the question as a means of putting the blame on somebody else. I don't think anybody should point the finger at someone else for not giving condolences to a fallen soldier's family, especially if accusation was false.
What is your opinion on this situation? Do you think that Trump purposely made this "claim" up in order to call out Obama or was it actually a fact that Trump flat out did not know?
NY Times Article
9 comments:
I think that his evasion of the question is very unprofessional. And on top of that, making false allegations against others to make it seem as if he is doing a good job is just ridiculous. Whether he made it up or was just being ignorant, he needs to learn that he can't just run his mouth with no concern for the truth.
Yes, I absolutely agree with Elena that his aversion of the question was shady and improper. I don't know whether or not he made the claim up, but either way, fabrication or ignorance, is a bad sign of his presidency. However, I think that yet again, this is not inconsistent with his past behaviors. He seems to enjoy comparing himself to Obama quite a bit, always trying to make himself look better when most of his facts are fake news. I saw a tweet online where he criticized the amount of vacation that the Obamas took during the presidency in 2011. I believe that he has taken three times as many vacations in the first sixth months of presidency than the Obamas did. There was also that tweet online (I think it came from a Trump supporter) that praised Trump with his handing of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, bashing the Obamas and saying, "What was Michelle Obama doing during Hurricane Katrina? Shopping" with a picture of Condoleezza Rice attached. Hurricane Katrina also occurred in 2005, when Bush, not Obama was still president. Trump has a habit of fabricating facts, being a hypocrite, or simply just being ignorant. I don't think that he necessary wanted to level false allegations against Obama, but I think he just wanted an opportunity to denounce the previous president and pulled a random fact from his back pocket to do it.
I think Trump has an unfortunate habit of saying anything without actually thinking about it. He has absolutely no filter himself, and as a result he says whatever he pleases regardless of reality. One of my major concerns with Trump is his dubious relationship with reality. Most of the time what he says is vetted by people who work to make him not sound like a raving lunatic. It's very obvious when Trump goes off script, sometimes in speeches, but mostly on Twitter. Whenever he runs his mouth he gets himself, or his administration into trouble. He undermined all of his Secretary of State's negotiations with North Korea through a single tweet which shared his obviously expert opinion on international negotiations (that it isn't worth your time).
I personally think that Trump is just trying to use this to cover up his lack of action towards contacting and staying in touch with fallen families. President Trump claims clearly reveals that he has limited knowledge and familiarity of past presidents like Obama. He doesn't think before he makes a claim, which is ultimately viewed as acting inappropriately. I believe that he had prepared previously, a script of what he was going to say in the conference; however, he digressed from the facts. Unlike other presidents, Trump is wrong many times when it comes to accusing people. Even though his accusations are inaccurate, he says it in a way that makes the majority of the people believe it. It masks his performance making him seem as a great and smart president.
It is Trump's default, reflexive response to deflect blame and criticize past leaders. His ability to rake mud is a big reason why he was elected our president. As for whether it is morally right or not to fabricate claims about other politicians, I would agree that it is distasteful, but I don't think that Trump is the only person to put out misleading claims about politicians from the opposite party.At this point, we can't do anything about Trump's lack of a verbal filter, but it is up to the American public to call out his fabrications and not take them seriously.
I believe it was an attempt to blame others for his impulsive actions than was realized in his situation that he is completely wrong. Trump has been know for throwing the blame on others in attempt to sustain an average popularity among his followers.However, in this scenario, He attempts to throw blame on a topic that is in favor of Obama, knowing that Obama has done a lot for the Families of the US Military during his presidency. Realizing his comparison to a much more respected president, he retracted his statement on the belief that he is essentially doing equal or more than Obama and past presidents for support of Families of the Military
I agree with Sam. There have been many incidents where Trump is caught making rude comments due to the lack of filtering his thoughts. Personally, I believe that being a President, one needs to be cautious of what they say and act professionally. Based on his previous comments that have been called out, it seems like he has a habit of making claims and false accusations completely disregarding the truth. This isn't the first time we've seen something like this from Trump, and it isn't likely he will change his habits.
I agree with Daniel. This is one of the main reasons Trump is president. Whether you like him or not, like most political leaders, he has an amazing skill to manipulate the public by dodging and changing questions. Even though this is probably a false accusation, many people are likely to believe him because he is the President. Like stated by people above, one of the few ways to correct this is to have the American Public call him out on his false claims. By doing this and providing substantial evidence, people will see him as the lair many of us see him as.
I took this very plainly as yet another example of Trump's immaturity, lack of education, dishonesty, and disrespect not only for his country abut for himself. I think that he is just doing his best to diminish the name of all that oppose him or criticize him. Although he made the claim I doubt the masses will believe it because whether people liked Obama as a president or not, it was rather clear that he was the living embodiment of a true gentleman and it makes Trump's lie that much more outrageous. Through this attempt to discredit, Trump yet again tried to redirect people's anger onto others, the whole reason came up with this lie was because he was being criticized for not calling the family in the first place, and he tried to wiggle out of it by lying. Big surprise.
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