President Trump on Saturday continued his attack against Rep. Frederica Wilson, Florida Democrat, after the congresswoman accused him earlier this week of being insensitive during a phone call with the widow of a soldier recently killed while serving in Niger.
“I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!” Mr. Trump tweeted Saturday morning from his personal Twitter account.
The congresswoman did not immediately comment publicly on the president’s tweet.
The White House has been at war with Ms. Wilson ever since the congresswoman spoke out earlier this week about a Tuesday phone call between Mr. Trump and Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four Americans killed during an Oct. 4 ambush near the border of Niger and Mali in west Africa.
Mr. Trump said during the call that the slain soldier “knew what he signed up for … but when it happens it hurts anyway,” according to Ms. Wilson.
“It’s so insensitive,” Ms. Wilson said Wednesday. “He should have not said that. He shouldn’t have said it.”
The White House subsequently accused the congresswoman of politicizing a “sacred” issue, fueling a war of words between either side prolonged by the president’s social media outburst Saturday — his second tweet this week labeling Ms. Wilson as “wacky.”
“The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!” Mr. Trump tweeted Thursday.
Ms. Wilson said she is close with the soldier’s family and heard the conversation on speakerphone.
“I didn’t say what that congresswoman said; didn’t say it all. She knows it,” Mr. Trump said earlier this week. “I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife who was — sounded like a lovely woman. Did not say what the congresswoman said, and most people aren’t too surprised to hear that.”
“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Cowanda Jones-Johnson, the soldier’s mother, told The Washington Post.
Johnson, 25, was killed in an ambush that also claimed the lives of Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, 39, and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, 29. The incident is currently under investigation.
Ms. Wilson is the former principal of a Miami elementary school and has represented Florida in Congress since 2011. She previously served as a member of both the Florida state House and Senate.
Ms. Wilson isn’t the first person labeled “wacky” by the president’s Twitter account. Mr. Trump previously used the term to describe New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and conservative commentator Glenn Beck.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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