Report: Trump Is Behind on Delivering Condolences
On October 20, Roll Call published information, based on undisclosed Pentagon email exchanges, suggesting that President Trump's October 16 press conference claim that he'd contacted almost every family to have lost a military service member this year was false. At the same press conference, the president also made the claim that previous presidents hadn't called or contacted as many servicemembers as he had.
The Pentagon email exchange also suggests that the White House did not have an up-to-date list of U.S. military casualties at the time the president commented, and that senior aides had to then rush condolences to military family members.
This particular claim has since been corroborated by a report published in the Atlantic, in which multiple families confirmed they only recently received letters from the president about their lost military family members. Timothy Eckels Sr., who lost his son Timothy Eckels Jr. in the August 21 U.S.S. McCain collision incident, said of the White House parcel he received on October 20:
"Honestly, I feel the letter is reactionary to the media storm brewing over how these things have been handled. I’ve received letters from McCain, Mattis, and countless other officials before his. I wasn’t sure if the fact that the accident that caused Timothy’s death has still yet to officially have the cause determined played into the timing of our president’s response."
Eckels shared that the letter was "respectful." Two more families of servicemembers killed in the U.S.S. McCain, as well as a family of a servicemember killed in Iraq in August, also received letters within the past week.
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