At the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, presidential candidate Donald Trump took his feud with John McCain to a whole new level.
According to Politico:
“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
The response from the crowd was scattered booing.
Arizona Senator John McCain was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War, who was captured and spent almost 5 and 1/2 years in the North Vietnamese prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton”. He was repeatedly tortured and spent two of those 5 years in solitary confinement.
Again from Politico:
At a press availability following his remarks, Trump denied saying that McCain isn’t a war hero and said, “If somebody’s a prisoner, I consider them a war hero.”
He also continued his attacks on the Arizona senator, saying, “I think John McCain’s done very little for the veterans. I’m very disappointed in John McCain.”
Trump himself was granted 4 student deferments from military service during Vietnam. In Iowa, he told reporters he also received a medical deferment for a bone spur in his foot, but when asked which foot he told them to check the records.
Politico notes:
In a follow-up statement sent to reporters, Trump again declined to apologize, calling McCain “yet another all talk, no action politician who spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job.”
The rest of the GOP candidates (smartly, if I may say) distanced themselves from Trump’s outrageous comments. Trump had already garnered quite a bit of controversy, which you can read about here, here, and here, but this has crossed a line.
Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee also spoke out via Twitter, denouncing Trump and supporting McCain.
From Politico:
Not all Republicans were ready to condemn Trump. When asked by POLITICO if the mogul’s comments were out of line, Santorum declined to comment. In a tweet, he defended McCain, but did not mention Trump: “.@SenJohnMcCain is an American hero, period.”
Ted Cruz spoke about McCain’s heroism at the summit, but also declined to condemn Trump for his statements.
Ben Carson did not comment on Trump’s remarks, nor did he choose to call McCain a war hero or not when asked. “It depends on your definition of a war hero,” he said.