The Bush administration’s ethics chief blasted President Trump on Thursday for his treatment of the families of fallen soldiers, saying Trump has “treated [them] like dirt.”

“Now we see a fallen soliders’ family treated like dirt, and I guess thats OK, to treat a fallen soldiers’ family like dirt, so long as we stand for the national anthem at a football game,” Richard Painter, the ethics chief for former President George W. Bush, said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”

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“We see each week new comments,” Painter continued, “but it’s the same old story. President Trump is not fit psychologically for office.”



Painter also said Wednesday that Trump has “no understanding of human emotions.”



Trump has faced major backlash for comments he is said to have made to the widow of a U.S. solider who was killed in an attack in Niger earlier this month.

Rep. Frederica Wilson Frederica Patricia WilsonHarris calls it 'outrageous' Trump downplayed coronavirus House passes bill establishing commission to study racial disparities affecting Black men, boys Florida county official apologizes for social media post invoking Hitler MORE (D-Fla.) said Trump told the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson that Johnson “knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens it hurts anyway.”

Trump denied details of the call that the Democratic lawmaker shared, but Johnson’s mother confirmed Wilson’s account.

White House chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE defended Trump in a surprise appearance at Thursday’s White House press briefing, saying he was “stunned” by Wilson's actions.

“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. I would have thought that was sacred,” Kelly said.