WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump told a lie about predecessor Barack Obama.Then something unusual happened. He took it back.Only partly, and without an apology or admission. Nonetheless, Trump’s de facto retraction was a rare acknowledgment of his own inaccuracy.Trump, holding an unscheduled press conference in the White House Rose Garden Monday afternoon, was asked about his public silence on the killing of four Army Green Beret soldiers in Niger on Oct. 4.Trump said he had written “personal letters” to the soldiers’ families, then that he would call the families “at some point.”Then he falsely claimed Obama, unlike him, never made such calls. “Now it gets to a point where you know, you make four of five of them in one day, it’s a very, very tough day. For me, that’s by far the toughest. So the traditional way — if you look at President Obama and other presidents — most of ’em didn’t make calls, a lot of ’em didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it. They have made the ultimate sacrifice. So generally I would say that I like to call,” he said.Obama regularly called the families of soldiers killed in action, former aides said, and he met with those “Gold Star families” whenever he visited a military base. One of the former aides, former deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco, reacted to Trump’s smear with public anger.“That’s a f---ing lie,” Mastromonaco wrote on Twitter. “To say president Obama (or past presidents) didn’t call the family members of soldiers KIA — he’s a deranged animal.”By the Star’s count, Trump averages more than two false claims per day, and he has almost never been willing to retract any of them. This time, though, he was challenged to defend his claim by NBC reporter Peter Alexander.He backed dow ...
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