"He doesn't want me to give him a nickname." Congresswoman attacked by Trump fights back

To “Crooked Hillary” and “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted,” we can now add “Wacky Congresswoman Wilson” as Trump’s latest attempt to demean someone who challenges him.

Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson has been a target of Trump and his administration for days now, after she stood up for the family of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was one of the four U.S. troops killed in an ISIS-led ambush in Niger.

Wilson, a long-time friend of the Johnson family, was in the car with his widow, Myeshia Johnson, when Trump belatedly called to supposedly offer condolences. As Wilson reported, Trump instead callously told Myeshia that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”

Trump lashed out at Wilson, insisting that she was lying. But La David’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, confirmed Wilson’s account.

That didn’t stop the Trump team from attacking Wilson, though. Chief of staff John Kelly took to the briefing room podium to attempt to defame Wilson, telling a wholly erroneous story about her supposedly bragging about her political clout regarding the naming of an FBI building after two slain agents.

Kelly has been called on from multiple corners to apologize to Wilson, but thus far, she’s gotten nothing from him and little more than continued sniping and her own playground nickname from Trump.

But Wilson was unruffled by Trump’s attempt to abase her, noting smoothly to MSNBC’s Joy Reid that “he doesn’t want me to give him a nickname.

REID: And meanwhile Congresswoman, the president of the United States is still focusing on you. He was tweeting about you this morning, even, and there is his tweet [image on screen]: ‘Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving, etc etc, disaster for Dems.’ What do you make of the fact that the president is so focused on you, and has not tweeted about Sgt. Johnson?

WILSON: Well, that’s the way he is. And I’m sick of him giving people nicknames. He doesn’t want me to give him a nickname.

Wilson went on to pointedly label the ambush in Niger as “Trump’s Benghazi,” and to discuss the important work she has done to combat the forces of ISIS and Boko Haram in Niger — where the four troops were murdered — and neighboring countries, and on behalf of those terrorist groups’ victims, including young schoolgirls.

The administration “needs to concentrate on what happened and what is happening” to our soldiers in Africa, Wilson noted. “I am extremely concerned” that the White House is not showing any urgency regarding finding out exactly what caused this “catastrophe” in Niger, she added.

And later, when Reid asked Wilson about Kelly’s lies about her and if she would like to get an apology from him, Wilson had a sharp analysis of Kelly’s motivations.

“You know, John Kelly is almost — I guess you could say he was a puppet of the president,” she said. “And what he was trying to do was divert the attention away from the president onto me. And he basically just lied on me, and I don’t appreciate people lying on me.”

“I’ve been in politics a long time,” she continued, “and most things don’t bother me. You know, it just rolls off my back.” But it was the “character assassination” that Kelly unleashed on her which truly upset her, and the fact that he spread dishonesty to the public.

“Not only does he own me an apology, but he owes an apology to the American people, because when he lied on me, he lied to them,” she declared.

Trump and Kelly can continue to lie about and attack Wilson and others, but she has made it clear that their insults will only energize her to keep standing up for herself and others.