The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.
Well, this one is a doozy even by current standards. Stung by criticism of the way he’s handled the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Niger, the president claimed earlier this week that he makes more calls to the families of soldiers who are killed in action than previous presidents have made. The Washington Post attempted to check this assertion by contacting the families of the 20-plus service members who’ve died in action during Trump’s term—and not only did they find a number of families that never heard from him, they found one father who says the president promised him a personal $25,000 check that never arrived:
President Trump, in a personal phone call to a grieving military father, offered him $25,000 and said he would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family, but neither happened, the father said.
Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, told The Washington Post that Trump called him at his home in Zebulon, N.C., a few weeks after his 22-year-old son and two fellow soldiers were gunned down by an Afghan police officer in a suspected insider attack June 10.
Baldridge says he has not subsequently received anything from the White House except a “condolence letter.”
The White House’s official response to the Post story is amazing:
The check has been sent. It’s disgusting that the media is taking something that should be recognized as a generous and sincere gesture, made privately by the President, and using it to advance the media’s biased agenda.
Did you catch that? The check “has been sent.” But Baldridge hasn’t gotten it, which means it may well not have been sent until the Post made inquiries. In other words, the check’s in the mail.
Please impeach this doofus.
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images, Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images, Drew Angerer/Getty Images, and Peter Parks-Pool/Getty Images.
