John Dingell’s widow fires back after Trump targets her on Twitter after his funeral anniversary
This past December during a rally in Michigan, Donald Trump demonstrated for the umpteenth time what a truly execrable creature he is. He brought up the late John Dingell, a beloved Michigan congressman who passed away last February and—presumably because Dingell was a Democrat and frequent critic of his administration—implied that he was in hell “looking up.” He also took aim at Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), the late congressman’s widow, slamming her for rightfully voting to impeach him.
Dingell said that the hateful remarks felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. Trump, being Trump, never apologized.
TRUMP: "Debbie Dingell, that's a real beauty. … She calls me up … 'John would be so thrilled. He's looking down, he'd be so thrilled. Thank you so much sir.' I said, ‘That's okay, don't worry about it.’ Maybe he's looking up, I don't know." pic.twitter.com/PjqFQ71g0f
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) December 19, 2019
A few days ago, Trump once again stoked his disgraceful feud with the Dingell family by tweeting out a claim that Rep. Debbie Dingell called him with “tears flowing” to thank him for “rolling out the maximum ‘Red Carpet'” for her husband.
He once again attacked her over her impeachment vote, took a random jab at Speaker Pelosi, and then brought up the recent and irrelevant problems with the Democratic Iowa caucus.
The tweets were generally incoherent (as they so often are) but one thing was absolutely clear: Trump decided once again to attack a widow, this time a mere day after the anniversary of her husband’s death. It’s as if he was counting the days until right after that specific date to once again twist the knife and exacerbate the congresswoman’s emotional pain. This is a sadistic beast of a man.
.@RepDebDingell, who called me, tears flowing, to thank me for rolling out the maximum “Red Carpet” for the funeral of her husband, then voted against me on the partisan Impeachmen Hoax, said “everybody (Dems) wants to get out of town. This has been, in my whole career, one of…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2020
…the worst weeks ever.” She could have had a much better week if Crazy Nancy, who is the most overrated person in politics (going to lose the House a second time), didn’t bring the phony & corrupt Impeachment Hoax. Dems can’t do anything right, just look at the Iowa vote count!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2020
To make matters even worse it appears that—surprise, surprise—Trump was lying. CNN’s Daniel Dale reports that Congresswoman Dingell’s spokesperson says she never called Trump to thank him and that she actually worked with Speaker Pelosi to plan the funeral. Instead, the president called her unprompted and offered to lower flags in honor of her late husband. She appreciated the gesture.
Clearly, Trump was not acting out of any kind of sense of compassion. He never is. Instead, he viewed the flag-lowering as a transaction and resents the fact that it wasn’t enough to get the congresswoman to vote in his favor on impeachment.
The fact that he then proceeded to completely distort what happened and claim credit for Pelosi’s efforts perfectly exemplifies what a pathetic, small-spirited man he is. Anyone who votes to reelect him at this point is signaling that the character of the president, or lack thereof in this case, is utterly immaterial. We cannot send that message to future generations.
Debbie Dingell's spokesperson says Dingell never called Trump to thank him for anything related to John Dingell's funeral, for which she worked with Nancy Pelosi. Rather, Trump called Debbie Dingell and told her unsolicited that he would lower flags, which she appreciated. pic.twitter.com/ALie5Y01uU
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 11, 2020
Trump has a lonnng history of making up phone calls in which people thank him or congratulate him. This tweet combines the Praise Call genre of false claim with a hint of the Critic Who Begged Me genre of false claim.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 11, 2020
