South Bend mayor and Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg doubled down on his assertion that President Donald Trump faked a bone spurs diagnosis to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.
“There is no question, I think to any reasonable observer, that the President found a way to falsify a disabled status, taking advantage of his privileged status, in order to avoid serving,” Buttigieg told ABC’s Martha Raddatz in an interview aired Sunday on “This Week.”
The mayor said he was positive that Trump faked a disability, and called it “an assault on the honor of this country.”
Pete Buttigieg on President Trump: "You have somebody who thinks it's alright to let somebody go in his place into a deadly war, and is willing to pretend to be disabled in order to do it. That is an assault on the honor of this country" https://t.co/LqbnX8uTU4 pic.twitter.com/YBcQfr4Vsz
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 26, 2019
The comment doubled down on remarks Buttigieg made to the Washington Post’s Robert Costa this week. Trump, he said, “took advantage of the fact that he was the child of a multi-millionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place.”
Robert Costa: "Do you think [Trump] should have served in Vietnam?"
Pete Buttigieg: "Well, I have a pretty dim view of his decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam."
Via WaPo Live pic.twitter.com/5UT9m8TA89— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 23, 2019
Trump received five draft deferments: Four for education and one for bone spurs after he graduated college. “I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels,” he told The New York Times in 2016, when the paper reported on questions surrounding that fifth deferment. Buttigieg deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 as Navy Reserve intelligence officer.
