We’ve all seen San Antonio Spurs’ future Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich in a state of exasperation on the sidelines, or in post-game news conferences. Many of us have also heard him speak with great vexation and clarity about the direction of this country and the actions of Donald Trump, particularly on Trump’s “disgusting tenor and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic.” But I have never heard this man so frustrated, so fed up, and so tense with anger than today.
Coach Pop called me up after hearing the President’s remarks explaining why he hadn’t mentioned the four US soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger. Trump said, “President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.”
Maybe it was bald-faced nature of this lie. Maybe it is Pop’s own history in the military, but the Coach clearly had to vent. He said, “I want to say something and please just let me talk and please make sure this is on the record.”
Here is what he expressed:
I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this President had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families, is so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.
At this point, Coach Pop paused, and I thought for a moment that perhaps he didn’t have the words and the conversation would end. Then he took a breath and said:
This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner–and to lie about how previous Presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers–is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this President should be ashamed because they know it better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.
WASHINGTON — President Trump falsely asserted on Monday that his predecessor, Barack Obama, and other presidents did not contact the families of American troops killed in duty, drawing a swift, angry rebuke from several of Mr. Obama’s former aides.
Answering a question about why he had not spoken publicly about the killing of four American Green Berets in an ambush in Niger two weeks ago, Mr. Trump said he had written personal letters to their families and planned to call them in the coming week.
“If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference in the Rose Garden with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. “A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate.”
Mr. Trump’s assertion belied a long record of meetings Mr. Obama held with the families of killed service people, as well as calls and letters. Mr. Obama regularly traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to greet the caskets of troops, a ritual that began early in his presidency before he decided to deploy 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
“This is an outrageous and disrespectful lie even by Trump standards,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, posted on Twitter. “Also,” Mr. Rhodes added, “Obama never attacked a Gold Star family.”
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(CNN)Breaking his public silence about four American soldiers killed during an ambush in Niger, President Donald Trump said Monday he'd penned personal letters to their families and planned to phone them later this week.
He also claimed, without merit, that his predecessors hadn't written or called the families of slain American troops during their tenures, though the tradition of presidents reaching out after US servicemen are killed in action is long-established.
Trump said he'd written the letters over the weekend, and suggested they'd be mailed early this week. He was speaking 12 days after the ambush -- the deadliest combat incident since he took office.
"I felt very, very badly about that," Trump said during a press availability in the Rose Garden. "I always feel badly. It is the toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens, soldiers are killed."
He then claimed that other commanders in chief hadn't reached out to families of Americans killed in action, indicating he'd been told as much by the generals who serve in his administration. [TrumPsychopath ...]