The Latest: Pelosi defends Rep. Wilson
By Associated Press
Oct 20, 2017 12:11 PM CDT
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)   (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on a dispute over White House condolence calls to military families (all times local):

1:08 p.m.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is defending Rep. Frederica Wilson after she's come under attack from President Donald Trump.

Pelosi calls Wilson "a wonderful kind person" who's accomplished a lot. Trump has criticized Wilson for listening to and criticizing his condolence call to the family of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger.

Pelosi says "the fact they would put a president's call on a speaker phone is not unusual, I'm sure there were other people listening at the White House as well."

Appearing on ABC's "The View," Pelosi says: "Let's just take down the heat on this, bring it to a place where there's no doubt in anyone's mind that we respect our men and women in uniform."

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10:20 a.m.

A Florida congresswoman says White House chief of staff John Kelly lied when he said she took credit two years ago for securing funding for an FBI field office in south Florida.

Rep. Frederica Wilson says in an interview with CNN on Friday that she wasn't in Congress in 2009 when the money for the building was secured.

Wilson says she named the building at the request of then-FBI Director James Comey.

She says Kelly "needs to stop telling lies on me."

Kelly denounced the congresswoman at a White House briefing on Thursday after she publicly criticized President Donald Trump's comments during a phone call with the widow of a fallen soldier.

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4 a.m.

White House chief of staff John Kelly is defending President Donald Trump against accusations of insensitive outreach to a grieving military family.

Kelly is a retired three-star general whose son was killed while serving in Afghanistan. On Thursday he dressed down the Democratic congresswoman who had criticized Trump for comments she said he had made in a condolence call to the pregnant widow of a Green Beret killed in Niger.

Kelly called Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida an "empty barrel" who "makes noise," but he did not deny the lawmaker's account of the phone call.

The uproar over Trump and how presidents should or shouldn't try to console families of the fallen has rattled the White House and overshadowed the rest of Trump's agenda in recent days.

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