White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday pushed back on the idea that the controversy over a Niger ambush that left four Americans dead is a “defining moment” for the Trump presidency.
“I would not say that this is the defining moment,” Sanders said during a George Washington University panel discussion about Trump’s first year in office, which also included several White House reporters.
“I wouldn’t characterize it as that. I think the media would like for it to be,” Sanders added.
“They want to create a narrative that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with. And I think that there is certainly a desire to make this into a situation of an attack point on the president. I don’t necessarily agree with that process at all.”
The White House spokeswoman, who had also been asked about the biggest negatives facing the administration, said it has been Congress’s failure to enact Trump’s agenda.
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Sanders’s remarks fall on the heels of a drawn out controversy over Trump’s delayed Niger response after four U.S. soldiers died in an ambush earlier this month, as well as a disputed account of the contents of a phone call the president made to one of their widows.
Trump attacked Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson (D) on Twitter last week after she blasted the president for telling the widow of one of the soldiers that he “knew what he signed up for.”
Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, confirmed the congresswoman’s description of the call during an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday — an account of the call that Trump has vigorously denied.
“I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!” Trump tweeted Monday.
Trump earlier this month also defended his delay in responding to the deaths in Niger during an impromptu press conference in the White House Rose Garden, claiming that former President Obama and other past presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers.