Media

Fox’s Baier: Trump ‘opened the door’ to fallen soldiers controversy

by Joe Concha - 10/19/17 3:40 PM ET

Fox News anchor Bret Baier said Thursday that President Trump “opened the door” to controversy dominating cable news this week when he pointed to past presidents’ approach to contacting the families of fallen soldiers.

“There are some people in the town that blame the media for jumping on and focusing on it but we go back to that original statement,” Baier, the host of “Special Report,” said on “America’s Newsroom.”

“The president was asked about Niger and the four soldiers and why we haven’t heard about what happened — we still haven’t heard exactly what happened in that operation — but the four soldiers who died, and then he turned it to previous presidents and whether they called or didn’t call or reached out or didn’t reach out,” Baier said.

“That was his answer, that’s what started this whole cascade.”

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Multiple military families have come forward this week to criticize how the president treated them after their relatives were killed in action. Media organizations began reaching out to Gold Star families after Trump criticized how past presidents handled calls and letters to such families.

“No matter where you come down, we should focus on the deaths of the soldiers and the people who served and not this process. But it is — the president opened this door, we should point out,” Baier said Thursday, referring to the process of contacting family members after a military death.

Trump was asked on Monday why he had not personally addressed the deadly ambush in Niger, which had happened nearly two weeks earlier.

The president said in a Rose Garden press conference that he had written letters to the soldiers’ families before noting that “President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls” to families of the deceased.

The comments sparked heavy criticism from lawmakers, retired military officials and political pundits, who argued Trump was politicizing a sacred topic.

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