Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

Ukraine gamble pays off: Republicans face little backlash in primaries

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Boeing delays spaceflight again as it continues to struggle with leak

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

A taco will always be a taco — no matter what we call it

Mexican taquería’s new Michelin star puts street eats on par with gourmet food

Police believe a U.S. rapist killed several women in Canada

With its energy network nearly destroyed, Ukraine already fears the winter

Carolyn Hax: Is it weird to ask other people to care about you?

Ask Amy: Can’t a single woman eat alone without interruption?

Miss Manners: Miss Manners: Gag gift falls flat

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

In photos: The scene in Houston after severe storms killed at least 7 people

Civilians flee new Russian attacks on Ukraine border

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

Cruise ships to return to Baltimore two months after bridge collapse 

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

At campus protests, ‘DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA’!

Trump’s lawyer charges Michael Cohen lied to jury

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Trump

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Four U.S. Special Forces soldiers were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-identifies-fourth-us-soldier-slain-in-niger-ambush/2017/10/07/02760672-ab93-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?utm_term=.b9f9ceb596d3">killed</a> earlier this month while on patrol in Niger. President Trump’s silence on their deaths has been notable, with 10 days having passed without any comment from the White House — 10 days during which Trump visited his golf club in Sterling, Va., five times.

During an impromptu news conference in the White House Rose Garden on Monday afternoon, Trump was asked why he hadn’t yet made a public comment on the fatalities.

“I’ve written [the soldiers’ families] personal letters,” Trump replied. “They’ve been sent — or they’re going out tonight but they were written during the weekend.”

“I will at some point during the period of time call the parents and the families because I have done that traditionally. I felt very, very badly about that; I always feel bad. The toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens, soldiers are killed. It’s a very difficult thing. Now, it gets to a point where you make four or five of them in one day, it’s a very, very tough day. For me that’s by far the toughest.”

“So, the traditional way, if you look at 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. They have made the ultimate sacrifice. So generally I would say that I like to call. I’m going to be calling them — I want a little time to pass — I’m going to be calling them. I have, as you know, since I’ve been president I have. But in addition I actually wrote letters individually to the soldiers we’re talking about and they’re going to be going out either today or tomorrow.”

These comments were immediately criticized by veterans of the Obama administration and members of the media who had covered it.

“That’s a f—ing lie,” <a href="https://twitter.com/AlyssaMastro44/status/919988497976582144">replied</a> Alyssa Mastromonaco on Twitter. Mastromonaco served as deputy chief of staff for operations under Trump’s predecessor. “To say President Obama (or past presidents) didn’t call the family members of soldiers” killed in action suggested, she said, that Trump was a “deranged animal.”

In late 2010, the family of a soldier who was killed in action reached out to the White House and was <a href="http://blog.thenewstribune.com/military/2010/12/30/his-name-was-sean-and-he-died-for-his-country/">apparently told</a> by someone there that “Obama did not regularly make phone calls to the families of fallen soldiers.” The story got a decent amount of attention in the conservative media.

So, too, did <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/white-house-disputes-charge-president-uses-auto-pen-for-letters-to-lost-soldiers-grieving-families/">an allegation</a> that Obama’s letters to the families of those killed in action were signed with an auto-pen, a mechanical device that allows for the rapid signing of multiple documents. That rumor got picked up by Trump himself, who <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/241250046081900545">repeated it</a> on Twitter.

Those letters did appear to have been form letters, though ABC notes that George W. Bush used form letters, too. A 2009 Washington Times story <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/obama-pens-real-notes-to-fallen-troops-families/">explained</a> how, at that point, Obama hand-wrote notes to family members of those killed, notes which were later typed up and signed.

Trump’s allegation that Obama hadn’t made calls was the subject of another question later in the news conference. “How can you make that claim?” NBC News’s Peter Alexander asked about Trump’s phone-call assertion.

The president admitted that Obama may very well have made calls after all.

“I don’t know if he did. No, no, no. I was told that he didn’t often,” Trump replied. “A lot of presidents don’t; they write letters. I do a combination of both. Sometimes — it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I do a combination of both. President Obama I think probably did sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do is ask my generals. Other presidents did not call. They’d write letters. And some presidents didn’t do anything. But I like, I like the combination of — I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter.”

Former Obama staffer <a href="https://twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/919991413973979136">Dan Pfeiffer</a>: “Now he’s lying about his own lie.”

Trump’s gambit with his initial assertion is made pretty clear with his description of a call and a letter as being “a very difficult thing to do” during his second response.

In order to make the gap between the soldiers’ deaths and his writing letters or calling the families seem less egregious, he suggests that those calls are particularly difficult, claiming that his predecessors avoided them as a result. Trump may be acting later than anticipated, but he wants people to think that’s made up for by doing <em>more</em> than anticipated. To have it be more than anticipated, he claims that calling those families is an unusual effort that he will undertake. When it’s noted that this isn’t actually unusual, he then suggests that what was unusual and abnormally difficult was the combination of a call and a letter.

Why not do it right away? He’s got an answer for that, too: He “want[ed] a little time to pass.”

Some of the time that will pass will be in when the letters were sent. First, they had been sent; then they were sent or being sent this evening; and, finally, they were sent or being sent this evening or tomorrow.

He didn’t indicate when he’d be making the calls.

The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America

Ohio State University

Philip Bump is a Post columnist based in New York. He writes the newsletter <a href="https://wapo.st/3m3QTiy">How To Read This Chart</a> and is the author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696653/the-aftermath-by-philip-bump/">The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America</a>.

Philip Bump

The Washington Post

Biden administration

The Fix

The Briefs

Polling

Democracy in America

Politics

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

2021 Election: Complete coverage and analysis

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.

prism://prism.query/site,/politics/the-fix&limit=6