'This was a mission that was started before I got here': Trump suggests Obama to blame for raid that lost Navy SEAL
In an interview with "Fox & Friends" that aired on Tuesday, Trump was asked how he felt that William Owens, whose son William "Ryan" Owens was killed in the raid in Yemen, didn't want to meet the president out of indignation because of the raid's botched execution.
"This was a mission that was started before I got here," Trump said. "This was something they wanted to do. They came to see me, they told me what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected - my generals are most respected we've had in many decades, I believe. And they lost Ryan."
The president acknowledged that Owens was upset about the loss of his son, but passed the buck to his predecessor.
"I can understand people saying that. What's worse? There's nothing worse. But again, this was something that they were looking at for a long time," Trump said.
The president has been criticized for hastily green-lighting the raid, which resulted in Owens' death, and reportedly did not yield significant intelligence, while allowing its primary target to escape. Though Obama administration officials drew-up plans for the raid, the president passed the decision along to his successor to decide whether to execute it.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, Owens' father slammed Trump, demanding an inquiry into the raid's planning.
"Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen - everything was missiles and drones - because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" Owens asked.
Though he told Fox News that the first several weeks of his presidency deserved an "A" grading, the president blamed the previous administration for a number of the existing White House's woes.
In the interview, Trump suggested that the surge in anti-Trump participation at Congressional town halls was organized by Obama. The president also said information leaks from within the federal government were the result of remaining Obama administration officials attempting to negatively depict the new White House.