MIAMI — President Donald Trump emphatically rejected claims Wednesday that he was disrespectful to the grieving family of a slain soldier even as the storm he ignited over his assertions of empathy for American service members spread into a third day.

The controversy over how Trump has conducted one of the most sacred of presidential tasks generated new White House turmoil.

After one slain soldier’s father accused the president of going back on a promise to send a check for $25,000, the White House said the money had been sent.

Chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, was left angry and frustrated at the way the issue has become politicized. The dispute was fresh evidence of Trump’s willingness to attack any critic and do battle over the most sensitive of matters — and critics’ readiness to find fault with his words.

“It’s exactly the wrong way to handle this kind of situation,” said Leon Panetta, who served as Defense secretary under President Barack Obama and White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton.

The aunt of an Army sergeant killed Oct. 6 in Niger, who raised the soldier as her son, said Wednesday that Trump had shown “disrespect” to the soldier’s loved ones as he telephoned them to extend condolences as they drove to the Miami airport to receive his body.

Sgt. La David Johnson was one of four U.S. soldiers killed nearly two weeks ago; Trump called the families Tuesday. The other soldiers were Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright.

Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat who was in the car with Johnson’s family, said Trump had told the widow that “you know that this could happen when you signed up for it, but it still hurts.” He also referred to Johnson as “your guy,” Wilson said, which the congresswoman found insensitive.

Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who raised the soldier from age 5 after his mother died, said Wednesday that the Democratic congresswoman’s account was correct. “Yes the statement is true,” she said. “I was in the car and I heard the full conversation.

At the airport, widow Myeshia Johnson leaned in grief across the flag-draped coffin after a military guard received it.

“She was crying for the whole time,” Wilson said. “And the worst part of it: When he hung up you know what she turned to me and said? She said he didn’t even remember his name.”

Trump started the storm this week when he claimed that he alone of U.S. presidents had called the families of all slain soldiers.

The Associated Press found relatives of four soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received calls from him. Relatives of three also said they did not get letters.

Obama and George W. Bush — saddled with far more combat casualties than the roughly two dozen under Trump — did not call all those soldiers’ families, either, but both did take steps to write, call or meet bereaved military families.

Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, who was killed in June in Afghanistan, told The Washington Post that when Trump called him, he offered him $25,000 and said he would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family. But Baldridge said it didn’t happen.

The White House said Wednesday that a check has been sent. And Trump spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said it was “disgusting” that the news media were casting his “generous and sincere gesture” in a negative light.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said protocol requires that the Pentagon and White House Military Office prepare and confirm an information packet before the president contacts grieving family members, a process that can take weeks.

Trump insisted that he “didn’t say what that congresswoman said, didn’t say it at all. She knows it.”

Washington Bureau contributed.