was in suggesting that congresswoman wilson was somehow intruding on this conversation between the president and the johnson family when as yaw you ve sa you said, congresswoman wilson had been invited to be present in the car where the conversation occurred. i think they put kelly out there because he is an effective messenger. he is powerful. he sounds focused. he sounds authentic. but i don t think we should lose sight of the substance and i think the substance was dishonest and disingenuous. the congresswoman will not be making any further comment on the issue because the focus should be on helping a grieving widow and family heal, not on her and donald trump. ron klain, your reaction to general kelly today. well, you know, lawrence, i think it was a tale of two statements. his discussion about his tragedy, his loss was powerful and effective. but as you say, he took a needless swipe at congresswoman wilson and used the word brave to describe the first president of the united s
now, we are the hour here that has been concentrated on congresswoman wilson at the beginning of this show. she hasn t been part of any other coverage tonight. he s clearly talking about that. he s, of course, on his end of the phone call, he was not alone. there were people listening in on his end of the phone call, including white house chief of staff general kelly. he s now saying that what she said was a lie. that general kelly did not say that today. general kelly did not contest a single word that she said. and what s more, as you pointed out earlier, lawrence, sergeant johnson s mother says that donald trump did disrespect her son and her daughter. so this isn t about congresswoman wilson and the president. it s about the president and a gold star mother.
should say, i m so sorry we disagree on this matter. i very much respect your husband and his service. the words i m sorry rarely come out of the president s mouth. when you hear him say he s a counterpuncher, that works very well when he s going against the nfl or other senators or members of congress even within his own party. that kind of fight is something you can expect in washington and happens regularly. but when you re attacking a grieving widow just days after she laid her husband to rest, you don t come off looking strong, you come off looking actually weak, being the president and punching down toward someone who is vulnerable and grieving. i think people within the white house are pretty clear that this is not the fight they want to be vag this week, and for them to prolong this fight against the grieving widow, gold star mother is not something that will help them in passing their agenda or even gig the moral high ground
from general dunford about what happened in niger. you have the president locked in this discussion, i suppose wi, h a gold star widow. and an assessment this is a fight worth having. one can t ever figure out why one makes a decision to have these fights, but a tough one to be in with a gold star mother. more what s going on in the actual investigation what happened in niger, joined by hans nichols at the pentagon and garrett haake on capitol hill. hans, next hour as hallie said, general dunford will hold a briefing. heard about it earlier, at the pentagon. now we know the topic is going to be niger. what is it that we re expecting to hear from general dunford? reporter: just speaking to officials here. we re going to get a sense of the timeline of how that ambush occurred in niger. also we re going to get a broader articulation why u.s.
he wants to punch down when they are people of color what is that? listen, i thought about that. and i have been thinking about it since this happened. well, you know people say why is it always about race? it s not necessarily about race. well it s about race until it s not. well, someone said this today, a gold star mother. she said this on cnn s air, and i want to get your response. let s play it. the sentence that he said after that, which was i suppose it must hurt anyway, speaks more to his personality and his feelings about maybe people of color, that it just didn t ring true and it didn t ring sincerely to me. and i was, frankly, appalled at