A staffer at the National Security Council drafted a statement of condolence for President Donald Trump to make almost immediately after a deadly incident involving U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month.

But Trump never issued the statement, and, some two weeks later, is now in hot water over his initial silence on the soldiers’ deaths and alleged controversial comments he made to a widow of one of the dead…

NSC spokesman Michael Anton declined to comment. The NSC staffer who wrote the original draft hung up on a POLITICO reporter who called to ask about it.