Whitney Hunter: White House Told Gold Star Widow To Wait By The Phone For Call From Trump, But He Never Called
Whitney Hunter was told by the White House to wait by her phone from a phone call from President Donald Trump after her husband was killed in a suicide attack while serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.
Trump never called.
Hunter came forward with her story on Wednesday after Trump’s controversial remarks about contacting the families of dead U.S. service members. Trump had drawn criticism for his failure to publicly acknowledge four U.S. service members killed earlier this month in an ambush in Niger, and when a reporter asked Trump why he had not said anything publicly, Trump went on the offensive against Barack Obama.
Trump claimed that Obama had not contacted the families of dead service members — a point that many Gold Star families and former Obama officials said is false — and Trump also claimed that he personally called the families of all service members killed during his presidency. But many families have now come forward to say that is false as well.
Whitney Hunter appeared on CNN on Wednesday to recount her interaction with the White House after her husband was killed in Afghanistan. Hunter said that her casualty officer said the White House had given word that she should be expecting a call from President Trump and that she should wait by the phone, but the call never came.
"He was genuinely the best person I've ever known," says Gold Star widow Whitney Hunter https://t.co/7NIoJazMzN https://t.co/9CvAUvdbYO
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) October 19, 2017
White Hunter did say she met with Vice President Mike Pence, she was disappointed that Trump did not keep his word.
“I don’t like that I was told that I would received the phone call but then I never did. I don’t have anything negative to say directly about the President, but my husband died for our country. He died for our nation, in defense of our nation, and I don’t want that to have been in vain… I don’t have anything negative to say about our President, but I do know the difference between right and wrong, and whenever you say you’re going to do something, you’re supposed to do it.”
Hunter is not the only person to come forward and say that Trump never called after a family member died in service of the United States. Sheila Murphy said she fell into a depression after her Army son died in a vehicle rollover in Syria last May, and she even wrote to Trump to tell him that “some days I don’t want to live.”
— Ignacio Gallup-Diaz ???? (@igallupd) October 18, 2017
While it was not clear if Trump received the letter personally, Murphy said she never received a call from the president, The Associated Press reported.
While Whitney Hunter was left with a bitter taste after her snub from Donald Trump, the Gold Star widow says she has nothing but happy memories of her late husband, saying, “I married a hero.”
[Featured Image by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images]
