There's been an unexpected twist in the recent drama surrounding Trump and the presidential duty of making phone calls to the families of fallen soldiers.
Last week, President Trump made up some questionable claims about why he had yet to call the families of the four U.S. Special Force soldiers who were killed in an ambush in Niger. He also created a social media shitstorm when he claimed that Obama and other presidents didn't call the family of fallen soldiers. He even suggested people ask his chief of staff John Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan, if Obama ever called him to offer condolences.
Let's just say, he hasn't exactly handled this particular duty very well.
But then today, a phone call the president allegedly made in April to Natasha De Alencar, the widow of Army Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, has been unearthed. The timing is pretty convenient, to say the least.
The Washington Post shared a video of De Alencar's phone call with the president, which occurred several days after her husband was killed. The clip was filmed by her daughter. And in the four-minute phone call, Trump comes off as very un-Trump-like, to say the least. Even, nice?
"I am so sorry to hear about the whole situation. What a horrible thing, except that he's an unbelievable hero," Trump says at the beginning of their call.
He continues by describing the complimentary things he's heard about Sgt. De Alencar, and then they both discuss her five children, namely her older son's college career. He also invites her to visit him at the Oval Office. De Alencar then thanks Trump multiple times for his phone call.
“At that moment when my world was upside down and me and my kids didn’t know which way we were going, it felt like I was talking to just another regular human,” De Alencar told the Washington Post.
After watching the president say offensive things, lie, and rage-tweet on so many occasions, hearing the president treat someone (a woman of color, no less) with respect is odd. Did our president have a moment of..... humanity?
Stay tuned for more updates on the situation.