Transcripts For CNNW New Day 20171018

Challenge mccain on patriotism. Its just common decency. We were able to find common ground. Im pleased the democrats have finally responded to my call for them to take responsibility. We havent had a chance to think about the way forward yet. This deal will not work if the president continues his campaign of sabotage. This is new day with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. We start with the president s call to the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson. A congresswoman listening in said, well, i guess he knew what he signed up for but i guess it still hurt. The congresswoman joins us with her account of that call. Remember what started all of this. This is part of the distraction from the ambush in niger. He had 12 days. He didnt say anything about it. He was talking a lot about it. Now these deaths are being politicized. The president is talking about what past president versus done and talking about husband own chief of staffs fallen son and making him part of the spotlight. Meantime, the president is intensifying his feud with another war here roerbgs senator john mccain. The man is battling cancer right now and the president warned him, i will come back at you. Lets begin with know johns live at the white house. You cant make it up. Thats for sure, chris. This was a sensitive and is sad national conversation. We entered calls into the families of the fallen u. S. Military personnel. The question is how often president s have made the calls. Now the question is about the content of the information, whats appropriate for the president to say in the situation and what should be left unsaid. Basically he said, well, i guess he knew what he signed up for. But i guess it still hurts. Democratic congressman Frederica Wilson recounting a conversation shez s said she overheard between the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson and the president. There is no reason for the president to be so insensitive. Reporter he was killed two weeks ago in niger. The plane receiving a water cannon salute as it arrived near the gate. His widow hugging her husbands flagdraped casket along with her 6yearold daughter in this heartbreaking video. Congresswoman wilson said President Trump called minutes before while the family was on their way to the airport. I was livid. I asked them to give me the phone because i wanted to speak with him, and i was going to curse him out. Reporter when asked for comment by cnn, the white house did not deny the comment saying only, the president s conversations with the families of american heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private. This conversation coming hours after the president used the death of the son of his chief on of staff john kelly, a marine, to bolster his false claim that his predecessor did not call the families of fallen members of the armed forces. I think ive called every family of Service Members who died. As far as other representatives, i dont know. But you can ask general kelly did he get a call from obama. Reporter general kelly said little in public about his sons death and asked specifically for his son not to be mentioned before a 2010 commemoration of two other marines killed in bat. According to multiple reports. Kellys son had been killed just days prior. The white house declined to make general kelly available for comment and he did not appear about the president as two key events tuesday. Records show that kelly and his wife were invited by the obamas to a white house breakfast for gold star families in 2011, but its unclear if they attended. Meanwhile, President Trump intensifying his ongoing feud with war hero senator john mccain, blasting the arizona senator for repudiating his nationalist world view. People have to be careful. At some point i fight back. Im being very nice. Im being very, very nice. But at some point i fight back, and it wont be nice. It wont be president. Reporter senator mccain said he has faced far bigger challenges than President Trump. That clearing the way for the Senate Budget resolution to advance for vote. The attention turning quickly to the president s tax plan. The Senate Finance committee expected to meet with the president in the oval office. Thats his only scheduled public appearance. Back to you. Joe, thank you very much. Joining us now is cnn political analyst gregory and ron brownstein. Gregory, this is a unique combination of somewhat common traits that we are seeing playwright now. The president has not showed a ton of empathy. And he will say anything he needs to do to distract from a situation. And it seems like all of them are at playwright here. But this report from this congress woman, if its true, it really shows he does not have a feel for this job yet. Thats right. The comments have been reported out to her to this widow of a fallen soldier seemed insensitiving awkward, not the kind of thing that you want to say to someone who is grieving. Again, id be curious to see if thats exactly how the conversation happened. This is a president who is not naturally empathetic. Who, when corner, or when he ser saoefs hes corn said, he lies. He doesnt act in ways that are in keeping with the dignity on of the presidency. To not show deference to your predecessors that is so sensitive to comfort the families of fallen soldiers, who you put into harms way as commander in chief is something that is not excusable and teams to a mindset, impulsivity that is disturbing when you think about other Big Decisions that have to be made. All the while were having this conversation this morning, the president is on twitter yet again lashing out about the comey letter and Hillary Clinton and the investigation into the leaks. And even calling out his own Justice Department saying where is the Justice Department. It shows there are no guard rails on this president despite efforts by his chief of staff and others to try. And he wants to get us off of this. Right. The same way he wanted to get us off the ambush by putting off the past president s. He knows what hes doing. Now whether or not its effective. Chris, youre right. We have seen the the way he approaches the job. It is is a refusal to take personal responsibility. He knew, the soldier knew what he was signing up for. What he was signing up for may or may not have been included proper planning and execution of this raid. Ultimately there is a political responsibility here for the house of representatives and the senate to do their job, which is oversight of the executive branch and the underlying questions of what exactly happened here. We pursued that in benghazi. The feud, attacks, spat that we heard in joes report, it is so systematic it is not random. The president sees the value in having personal conflicts with other political figures. Theres a cost to that. There is a sense that a majority of americans he does not have the temperament of the job. He sees this perpetual conversations that he is tackling the old boys club, breaking status quo and someone who is not going along with business as usual. And he is putting us on a hamster wheel in the media of constantly running down these easily disproved accusations only to see him begin, as david said, with the tweets this morning, another round of confrontations with an endlessly shifting set of targets. Back to the comments made to the grieving widow. A lot of People Struggle with what to say in the moments of grief. The president himself acknowledged these calls are hard for him. Thats what he said. He feels awkward, clearly, about them. I think part of the issue is it seems to be part of a pattern. That when talking about military sacrifice, he struggles in a very tone deaf way. We have seen it happen with john mccain. We saw it at the cia right after his inauguration. Lets just remind people of the way he has spoken in front of people who have sacrificed. Hes not a war hero. He is a war hero. Five and a half years. Hes a war hero because he was captured. I like people who werent captured, i hate to tell you. What sacrifice have you made for your country . I think i have made a lot of sacrifices. I worked very, very hard. I created thousands and thousands of jobs tens of thousands of jobs. Built great structures. Ive done ive had tremendous success. Those are sacrifices in. Oh, sure, i think theyre sacrifices. We had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning is and i turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I said, waeupl, i made a speech. I looked out, the field was the looked like a million, million and a half people. That last one, david, just remind everybody that was at the cia in front of the wall of agents who had fallen and sacrificed their lives for the country. Yeah. I mean, in some cases its just nastiness on his part. Its not a struggle. It is a choice to be insensitive. He seeks the light in a way that it doesnt matter what its for. Whether hes being nasty, whether hes being disrespectful, whether hes lacking empathy. Whatever keeps him at the center of the storm is what he likes. He thinks thats where he does his best work. Heres what this president willfully disregards, not that he is not a good model for our children, although that is not a small thing. In my household, we respect any president no matter who or what party theyre from. My children understand as a matter of course this is not a model for good behavior. That is sad. Beyond that, american citizens, our president should be a model for empathy when appropriate to reflect the pain of the country, the danger, the frustration, all of those things. This is something he willfully disregards as part of his job. Lots of flawed human beings have been president of the United States. He seems not to care about them. Real quick, hes hitting on the right point, the dignity of the office. But i think one of the reasons President Trump falls on that is because he does not really see his job as speak for the country. He sees it speaking for his faction of the country. There has been no effort to be president of the entire country or to really kind of bring in is and make feel welcome those who did not vote for him. As i say, i go back to this. We have seen the wheel turn so relentlessly, so perpetually, how many days a week are retalking about some new personal conflict that clearly there is a method here. It may be madness in that 60 of americans question whether he has the temperament for the job. But he has the way to tell his base there are no sacred cows. He will challenge anyone, even challenge john mccains war service. And he sees a value in that. By the way, the Senate Republicans are about to pass a budget resolution and envision giant cuts that he promised his older white base that he would protect to for the top 1 . We are not there as well. There is a method here. Theres a cost to it, but there is a method. And if you would imagine his ardent supporters, conservatives, populists, wherever they find themselves on the map, imagine the outrage toward a democratic president who would speak this way about john mccain or handle the military this way. Thank you both very much. So coming up in just minutes, we will speak live with that congresswoman, Frederica Wilson, about that phone call between President Trump and the soldiers widow. Also coming up, we have key gop leaders that are pushing congressional committees when it comes to the russia investigations. What they are telling Committee Members to do next. Your Insurance Company wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, you wont have to worry about replacing your car because youll get the full value back including depreciation. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. 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There is a growing number of key republicans who want the congressional investigations into potential collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia to wrap up and soon. This as form onner White House Press expect sean spicer becomes the third trump official to be interviewed by special country bob muellers team. Cnns man mu raju live on capitol hill with this new cnn reporting. Tell us about it. Good morning, chris. Yeah, there is growing tension on the hill over the russia investigation. Key republicans on some of these committees are telling their leaders it is time to end the inquiries by years end. One Top Republican jim ri is sh said the committee should not be chasing weak leads. Other republicans say democrats are trying to keep this hanging into the election season. Democrats like adam schiff are worried the gop is not aggressively pursuing the potential of collusion with the Trump Campaign, saying they have rush said witnesses into the committee before they have received relevant documents. We are told one example of that is jared kushner, who is a president s soninlaw. They would to interior view donald trump jr. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee has faced growing pressure from democrats to hold a public hearing for trump junior. He signaled that his previous comments that he couldnt avoid a public hearing still stood. Really all of this points to the challenges that lawmakers face in trying to reach any kind of bipartisan consensus on the findings of exactly what happened in last years elections. Alisyn. Manu, thank you very much. We want to discuss it with bill critical, editor of weekly standard. And president on the eagle forum fund. Lets start with manus reporting. I dont know if they are experiencing investigation fatigue or if they think there is no there there. They are push to go wrap up by the end of the year. How do you see this . They need to wrap up january 31st or february 1st. It will get wrapped up in the election year. A few more months . Yeah. More importantly the pweugz investigation is bob mueller. That is getting close to the end. You have to talk to the president , the vice president. That will happen within a month or two. People have a sense that these investigations go on forever. They do a little bit. I would think by february we will know both. It is important to mueller. How can they wrap up before they have their findings . They have to do what theyre set out to do. If theyre working, we havent seen it. We hear about spicer. Were speculating he was brought in to talk about his role in the white house. He was on the campaign. So we dont really know yet. My concern with all of these investigations is theyre in search of a justification. At a certain point it will take a lot of courage i think, i suspect, someone to say there wasnt anything here on the collusion. What were going to get to, the problem is i call mueller the zombie inspect counsel. Zombie counsel. Hes going to find something to devour and keep going. Hes looking at kushners business haoelgs. It is is a witchhunt in search of a witch. It is all going to be public. If its not legitimate, you and the president would say so. I wouldnt characterize them as being on the witchhunt. Im narrowing the description by the media into what theyre doing. What about obstruction of justice . Is that okay with you. It depends what it is. You worked in the white house. Going through the white house on Everything Everywhere you will find lots of conduct. Its a way to tie up the president. It is not being tied up. It is being done with great discretion. Theyre not leaking. Theyre doing their job. Theyre not leak something. You think muellers office is leak something. I think everybody is leaking. This is fake. What is . Its tying things up, distracting us. In what way is the president distracted by this . When lawyers get an assignment on a matter, bill, they decide they are going to expand to this. You are one of the great proponents of limiting the bureaucrats role. You are saying it is is a phishing expedition. Every lawyer but you dont know that. Neither does anyone. So lets not speculate that the former director of the fbi is engaged in what you just called a witchhunt. How about we dont speculate on the president on obstructing justice. I didnt speculate. I would like to know what he had with this one on one dinner with comey. Who does he work for . The president of the United States. He does not work personally for donald trump. Nobody said he did. So you know what, if trump behaved appropriately, nothing to fear. He has nothing to fear. We have a constitution what does he have to fear . We have a constitution that governs how people do their jobs. That is the law, bill. I am for the rule of law. Because of how he responds to things, lets step away from the president s response to military sacrifice. Today there is a question about his widow. He said something like, well, i guess he knew what he signed up for but i guess it still hurts. Can i tell you what this and bill will not agree, i can tell already. Heres what goes on when you work for a governor. Lots of meetings, lots of people speaking. If you look up Heritage Foundation speech, trump describes a conversation with a cop in las vegas who says this is what i signed up for. I run to defend good and to stop evil. And when you hear the president say to a dying to a widow something about its actually its such a slur on trump, President Trump. He actually was saying something nice. What is it about men like that guy who died that they run towards the bullets . And its because even though he knew that could happen he signed up. The idea that they take the snippet and runs with it, it is really, really respectful. It is important to hear your perspective. Look, she was in the car. She heard the tone. Thats how she interpreted it. But you hear it differently. Look, im not these are hard to do. Im not going to criticize the president for a poor choice of words. It is unfortunate. George w. Bush describes movingly widows getting angry at him. He just took it. What he said yesterday or two days ago and the dragging into this of robert kelly. Lets talk about that. I really cant stomach that. I cant believe were having this where he could have answered in four sentences, saying we all grieve for them. We have the greatest respect for our soldiers and he intends as president to make sure we all honor them. Thats it. Period. He didnt have to mention obama, all his predecessors. And then the next day to defend himself, to drag out robert kelly, i find that really how about that . Look, general john kelly does seem to be an innocent by stander in all of this drama. He studiously avoided the spotlight in terms of his own grief and sons sacrifice. He is being talked about by the president. General kelly gave that speech. Everyone should read it. Four days after his son was killed. He doesnt mention his son. It was about sacrifice. It is is a stirring example how you deal with it. We are in tough tower tore how to deal with it. Ultimately general kelly is a big boy. He knows how to deal with it. I respect his way of even now staying silent. The president just tweeted moments ago about this very thing. He said democrat congresswoman totally fabricated what i said to the wife of a soldier who died action and i have proof. Sad. We look forward to that. Were in the proof business. Were in the evidence business. This is really terrible that were having this honestly. Just talking to a widow. But the congresswoman wasnt well suited to go and make a big deal out of all of this. Look, these were private moments, right . These were the toughest moments. For whatever reason the congresswoman felt so affronted that she asked to get on the phone so she could curse him out. If the president said he has proof of something different, we welcome that. And whether or not the president is equipped to deal with the military sacrifice. Sit part of a pattern. This isnt the first time we heard him Say Something that has seemed off. I just want to say this. He is the president. If hes not going to to frankly, we should just accept the fact that what are we going to do . The soldiers and marines have to fight our country. The country honors them. Whether he phrases it well or not frankly doesnt matter. Lots of examples of people who meet the president who say they are very moved. I forget if it was las vegas. She said i wasnt for him but he wasnt like i thought he was. And this president is the first president living in, maybe by choice, in the twitter world. Where it is everything in realtime. Embracing it. As bill said, youre going to be good at some, bad at some. I think this congresswoman overhearing it is such a hard thing to judge how poorly or how well anyone takes it. We will get her take coming up. Thank you very much. Lets get over to chris. Lets bring in the democrat from oregon theres a lot to talk about in terms of the budget and what were dealing with this situation around niger. I know youre looking at what happened in the ambush. Were hearing that the pentagon is working on a tomb line. It is not clear if this is something theyre initiating now. What is your accepts of where we are in understanding what happened with this loss of American Life . Well, i dont have a lot new to share with you. It is a very important thing to get to the bottom of how this unfolded, the type of preparation involved. Obviously a very, very tragic day for our military. Should the president have said something about it before now . Well, i would certainly have expected him to address something of this size that occurred. And basically say were going to do everything we can to make sure it doesnt happen again. But we have heard so little on this topic. This back and forth with the democratic congresswoman and the president , he says he has proof that she is fabricating what he said to the widow. Whats your take on that . I feel like this shows how were just trapped in this game of thrones moment about different people saying different things. It is incredibly hard to speak to a family who lost their son or daughter. I have to close the door. I have to prepare myself emotionally. And i find sometimes parents and spouses want to talk at length, want to share some of the background of their loved one. Other times they are beyond words. But they appreciate that i called. Its just very tough. Its lets focus on the big challenges in the world rather than the president s phone call. Well, we try to do that. Sometimes how you do the job of president matters. You say, hey, a lot of other president s dont call or do anything. And its just not true. It is one more sign of the incredible emotional immaturity of this president. I have come to accept that hes trapped in a childhood emotional state and i just hope we can get through the next few years. Well, lets talk about how youll do exactly that. What do you make of the vote to be able to debate the budget proposition which will probably lead to a discussion of the tax cuts that the republicans are offering up . Are you okay with having this debate . Well, im fine having the debate. Thats the way the senate works. The senate needs to have more real debates on the floor. At the heart of this entire budget is essentially about a massive tax cut to the richest americans. The president needs to explain and the Republican Leadership needs to explain how can you say you will have reductions for the middleclass and 80 of the benefits are going to go to the top 1 of americans. If youre going to do it for the middleclass, shouldnt 80 go to the middleclass . When it comes to tax revenue, that top tier pays overwhelming majority. If you want to stimulate through tax cut. Were on not getting into that today. If you want to stimulate through tax cut you should do it because they are the ones paying the taxes. One tenth of 1 of americans owns basic live as much as the bottom 90 of america, of course they will pay more taxes. Its a phony point. The Health Care Proposal for Lamar Alexander and patty murray. Are you okay with their bill . Essentially it would put back in costsharing revenues that the president wrote out of the health care law. And also give flexibility to states. Yes. You have gotten right to the heart of it. Costsharing reduce the o outofpocket expenses for those who have 250 or less than poverty. That is certainly appropriate. Whats really important is you have democrats and republicans coming together in the Health Committee bringing the experts to say what can we improve and getting a set of things they can agree on. I would like to see, for example, the president still has the ability to shorten the period for signing up. He still has the ability to do these low hft cost plans for associations that may well be a complete scam for americans and undermine the exchange. But getting them to the floor, thats a great model the question is will they get to the floor. We will have to see. While they will get a vote on the tax bill it seems with the reconciliation, the 50 plus vote, we dont know if you get a vote on on the alexander murray. But we have to look at flexibility means. We will debate that deeper into the details. Thank you for being with us, as always. Thank you. President trump is responding to the controversy involving his call to the widow of one of the fallen u. S. Soldiers killed in niger. Democrat congresswoman totally indicated what i said to the wife of a soldier who died in action, and i have proof. Sad. That congresswoman Frederica Wilson joins us now. Good morning, congresswoman. Good morning. I know this is the first time that you are hearing the president s tweet read to you. So when he says that you totally fabricated what he said to the wife of the soldier and he has proof, whats your response . Well, i dont know what kind of proof he could be talking about. Im not the only person that was in the car. And i have proof too. This man is a sick man. Hes cold hearted and he feels no pity or sympathy for anyone. This is a grieving widow, a grieving widow who is six months prosecuting. This is a young woman. Shes only 24 years old. She weighs maybe 110 pounds. And she has two other kids. 2 years old and 6 years old. When she actually hung up the phone and she looked at me and said he didnt even know his name. Now, thats the worst part. Lets talk about that. What did you hear . Tell us about this phone call. Well, i didnt hear the whole phone call, but i did hear him say im sure he knew what he was signing up for, but it still hurts. And i asked them to let me speak with them. And Master Sergeant said, no, you cant speak with him. And i said, but i want to speak with him because i was livid when i heard that. And i was livid because this is a young man who i reared in my community of Miami Gardens. He came through my mentoring program. His father was a student at my elementary school. I was his principal. So i know them. And for him to say that this young man stayed in school, did all the right things, went into the service, bomb a sergeant and so quickly that he signed up for his own death . That is so insensitive. So thats how you interpreted it. You interpreted it as the president saying something callous in that way. Obviously it can be heard lots of different ways. It could be heard as the president trying to find some point of understanding to speak out to the widow. How did she hear it . She was crying. She broke down. And she said he didnt even know his name. Did you hear that part . Did you hear the part where it left the impression that he didnt know his name . She heard the part that he didnt know his name. And i dont think we should be trying to go into all of this. What the concern is, we have a soldier who died from Miami Gardens. And there are so many circumstances surrounding his death that i still have questions about. Representative hastings and i wrote a letter to the state department and to mr. Mattis asking about this. Why was he separated . We want an investigation. Because we have lots of boys in our community who we lose violently. This is a young man who we reared to be a hero. He did all the right things. He went to school. He finished school. He got married. He has two children. He has a pregnant wife. Hes a good man. And he lost his life for our nation and for our country. Thats what we should be talking about. And this is what we should be celebrating. Not that this is what he signed up to be. Yeah. That is sarcasm. That is insensitive. We have to hold our hands around this family. Is and right now were trying to raise money to send his two children is and his yet unborn daughter to college. So la David Johnson Scholarship Fund on go fund me. So congresswoman, a couple of things, about all the questions you have, about how he got separated, how Sergeant Johnson got separated from the other soldiers about why his body was left behind for those days, about his closed casket, did the president address any on of those things on the phone call . No, he did not. And when i first heard that he was going to call i said to the Master Sergeant, i would like to speak to him. Because i was going to ask him that. Some of those questions. Because im really concerned. Because when i asked the authorities in d. C. , they tell me when i go back i will have a classified briefing. But i didnt want to wait. And i was going to just say to the president how vicious boca that ram b pwoebg that ram is. They are misplacing millions of people across that region. And its africans killing africans. And ever since they kidnapped the school girls from nigeria i have been on this case. Bringbackourgirls. I traveled to that region. And to have my own child, my mentee who i reared from a young man to go and be killed, im devastated. Is it your impression from what you heard from the pentagon or just in congress that on this mission did the soldiers have the necessary cover for the mission they were on . It doesnt seem as if they had sufficient cover. It doesnt seem they had sufficient vehicles, the appropriate armored cars. It seems as if they were outnumbered. It seems as if he was missing for 24 hours. But his transmitter was still beeping. And it seems as if they could have found him. This may wind up to be mr. Trumps benghazi. So he needs to investigate this very, very closely. Because i will be making sure that congress does that. How is mrs. Johnson doing . She is so weak. And she is trying so hard. Shes trying hard for her little ones. But you can imagine her heart is paining because this is her husband who she is looking forward to a long life with, raising their children. And now hes gone. But he died as a hero. And the people of Miami Gardens are very, very proud of him. His family is very, very proud of him. And the Scholarship Fund is trending. So were doing as much as we can. Were showing them so much love. So much compassion. Congresswoman, listen, theres been so much criticism the last day of how the president has handled all this and people have accused him of politicizing this issue, pwrupging in germ john kellys son into the issue. Do you feel as though you are politicizing this issue by publicizing a private conversation between the president and this widow. When i got out of the car, someone asked me a question and i answered the question. I was done. Im concerned about why he died, why wasnt he protected, why was he left 24 hours without nip finding him. Was he captured . Was he murdered . What happened to him . Thats what im concerned about. Yeah. When the president tweeted that youve totally fabricated this conversation with the wife of a soldier that died and that he has proof, perhaps this phone call was taped on his end . What is your proof . Im not trying to prove anything with the president. So the president evidently is lying. Because what i said is true. I have no reason to lie on the president of the United States. With a dead soldier in my community. I have no time. I have no motive. I see him as ned in the first grade reader trying to find something to do and he has a lot to do. We are almost at war with north korea. Were dealing with iran. And he needs to learn from past president s like president obama and be president ial during times like this. Someone needs to train him and teach him what to say. Maybe they can write a script for him and he can just call and say you have my sympathy. Im sending you a letter. Congresswoman, you asked to be put on the phone with the president after what you heard the portion of the phone call that you heard. What were you going to say to him if you had been put on the phone . You know what, i think i was going to curse him out. And what were you going to say . You dont have to use the curse words. What was it about what you heard that got you so livid . Ill just keep that to myself because i dont want to politicize that. And who stopped you from getting on the phone call . The Master Sergeant that was in charge. He said i cant do that. The portion that you did hear, was that on speaker phone . Yes, it was. So part of it was on speaker phone. She was speaking on speaker phone. And i was not the only one in the car. I see. So who else heard the conversation . Well, there were her aunt, her uncle, my press person, the driver, the Master Sergeant. It was people. Were not trying to he leading up to the funeral of this young man, get into some sort of match with the president of the United States, who should be asking for an apology and asking giving her some empathy and love and wrapping his arms around this family. And trying to find out what he could do to make up for what he did say instead of calling me a liar and calling everyone else in the car a liar. He doesnt even know how to sympathize with people. Were grieving. This is a grieving community who is trying to do the very, very best we can in holding up our family. Who has paid the ultimate sacrifice. Yeah. And its disgraceful for him to even tweet about this. And as i say, this gentleman has a brain disorder and he needs to be checked out. I know you say there is a larger issue here is what went wrong. How to fix this . How did Sergeant Johnson get is separated from his fellow troops . Why was he left behind . So when you have tried to approach these with the white house, if you have tried to approach it with the white house and the pentagon, what are the answers . Are you making any progress in finding out the mystery of what happened here . They tell me that its all classified and when i go back on monday, i will have a classified briefing. I will be able to find out. And i think the one little nuance that has the wife so grief stricken is she wanted to have an open casket funeral. She is unable to do so because of the condition of his body. Especially the face. So she is grieving. Were all grieving this is hard. Very hard. Yeah. And his kids, have you been with them . Theyre little. How old are they . The little boy is 2 and then there is a 6yearold. But then he has a brother who is 6 years old on. And he was crying the whole time. He said i want my brother. I want my brother. But these are kids. These are kids. And thats why we are starting the scholarship la David Johnson Scholarship Fund, go fund me, because they will have to be educated. So im asking everyone who is listening give generously to these kids. They have the brother who came through the project. He is at Florida International university in engineering. He has another brother who is in florida in the 5,000 role models so these kids are good kids. This is such a sacrifice for our community. Yeah. Sometimes we see so many africanamerican men lose their lives in the streets of our inner city, and this is a young man that escaped all that. He had everything going for him. Yeah. But he paid the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved, for his nation, for his family. We should be praising him and praising his family, not insulting them. So congresswoman, when you say you think the president needs to be taught and he needs a script, what is that . What did you want to hear . What did mrs. Johnson want to hear from the president . What is that script ideally . I think maybe you could have said, you have my deepest sympathy, and he didnt even remember his name, so that was painf painful to her. He was a hero and you will be receiving a letter in the mail. That would have done it for you . I think so. Because when you ask him to Say Something he goes off script and he doesnt come out right and it hurts everybodys feelings and then we are accused of politicizing something, and its not politicized, its just him. So for the best thing for him in these circumstances is to write a note, have dictate a note and write a personal note to each of the families and mail it. When he makes his call, he can cut his call short by just saying im sorry, your son was a hero, and even though he already said he doesnt any that people who are caught or killed are heroes, thats what he said about john mccain. So Say Something nice and then send the letter. Congresswoman, what will happen today . If the president says he has proof and this continues, what are you looking for the president today. I didnt hear you. What do you want the president to say today . I want him to say absolutely nothing. We are trying to bury our son. Thank you, and we are sorry for your loss and we knew how long you knew Sergeant Johnson from the time he was a child, and thank you for joining us in this tough moment. Thank you so much. Lets bring in cnn political analyst to this conversation. The sad reality is theres not a good chance we wont hear from the president about this again. He spares no one when it comes to somebody calling him out. We are seeing it with john mccain, the guy is fighting cancer. It doesnt matter. Anybody who is around any president is telling him not to engage in this kind of back and forth. We have to be careful not to traffic in that either. If he has proof, let him tell it. What i heard yesterday from people i spoke to i agree with you that we cant traffic too much in this. I want to note the extraordinary moment we are in, and we are watching a fight between people supporting the family of a slain soldier and the president of the United States over what was said on what was supposed to be the remarkable moment. This is their side of it, and the president was watching television this weekend, and he was watching criticism of him over not having reached out. The response he had was to be frustrated because there was a protocol and he was waiting to be essentially let know by staff, his argument was this was clearly a staff failure and we know that happens, and this has happened with previous president s, however accepting all that, if thats true, the issue is always once you get to, okay, but here we are now and the president did not call until yesterday and the call was not made until i think the widow was on her way to collect her husbands remains, and its a difficult time and a charged moment once you are going to do that. As always it comes back to the president s, to your point, ability to step away from it. President s have moments like this, where things have not gone totally right and what matters is how you handle it going forward. I think most of his advisers would not have wanted him to handled it that way. He doesnt this is not his strong suit. Did he say that . No, but he said these are hard for me. But i dont think he means it the way his critics mean it. I think he is saying its hard for everybody to do. One of the strong suits is the handwritten note, so he was drafting a letter like that. Part of the question is that when all of this came up he brought in general john kellys situation and said, why dont you ask if president obama called john kelly. He avoided the spotlight of every bringing up his own lost or sons death in 2010. We know they say kelly did not get a phone call from president obama when his son died. I dont know if that was a staff issue. I dont know how general kelly feels about that, but my assumption, knowing trump as we do, and as we have for a long time, my assumption is kelly made a nuanced point to him at some point in private about his experience, and the president because his reaction to many things is to turn it when he is questioned personally to point that way, and say what about president obama or this one or that one, and he compared it to a side by side comparison and invoked the generals son. I think kelly has a series of complicated emotions in terms of how it was handled, and this is hard to handle about what he wants with his sons death. I asked the white house is he fine with this, and i was told yes. How could you be fine with somebody politicizing the death of your son . Thats a given. And the style situation is largely going to be forgiven with this base because it always is. It doesnt matter that its about slain soldiers and how he deals with empathy or not or what the congresswoman says. He has architected all of this to get away from what that white house statement did not clarify. They knew the ambush happened. He puts out statements about things all the time when he doesnt know what hes talking about, and he didnt do it here. This is the largest i know you get it, but people need to get it. This is the largest loss of life at the hands of an opponent on his watch. I think its funny, i was thinking about this over the weekend and talking to a colleague about it. If you look at how he handled various deaths of military personnel of soldiers, hes been quiet about it. As somebody, to your point, who uses his twitter feed, he has not drawn attention to the loss of life as commanderinchief. It would be acknowledging it happened on his watch, and i have to believe this happened i think some of this is as he is watching the television, and the timing of the tweet about the phone call to the widow and he has proof, and this was made up about him when the interviews were getting replayed, i think this is just it happened and he reacted. These condolence calls are very tough, and this one wouldnt be, i think, wouldnt be a big headline if it were not part of a pattern. He struggles with military service and people who gave the ultimate sacrifice. John mccain, we saw him Say Something insulting, and it insults pows, how dare they get captured. Is that a struggle or a choice to be insensitive my point is this is a pattern. Its not a struggle. Its unusual to be seen from a candidate for president and now a president. I will say, and the congresswoman clearly has a longstanding relationship with the family. We dont know how this family feels that the fact this is public either. I want to make that point. When i saw her comments last night, it was not initially clear she was listening to the phone call. I dont know how the family feels about this being repeated. This is private and personal. Its the president who treats, to your point, he does not make a distinction. These are members of the ma military, and they are making a tremendous sacrifice and that deserves a level of respect and attention. E