Trump slams McCain at Family Leadership Summit
Matthew Rezab/Iowa State Daily
Presidential candidate Donald Trump is interviewed at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames on Saturday, July 18. Trump was one of 10 Republican hopefuls at the event.
July 18, 2015
Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has never been one to shy away from controversy. He proved it again Saturday at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames.
Last Monday, McCain said Trump “fired up the crazies” when he held a rally in Phoenix, Ariz.
After Trump claimed to have to have raised $1 million for McCain during his 2008 presidential run, interviewer Frank Luntz prompted: “He’s a war hero.”
“He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said. “Perhaps he’s a war hero, but right now, he’s said bad things about a lot of people.”
McCain spent more than five years in a POW camp after his jet was shot down over Vietnam.
Trump’s opponents were quick to jump on the comment. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry went as far as to call for Trump to drop out of the race, saying Trump’s comments “have reached a new low in American politics.”
“His attack on veterans make him unfit to be commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he should immediately withdraw from the race for president,” Perry said, who will be interviewed this afternoon at the summit.
.@realDonaldTrump‘s comments today make him unfit to be Commander-in-Chief https://t.co/EVl1X66gHo
— Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) July 18, 2015
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At a press conference after the on-stage interview, Trump said he was disappointed in McCain because he has done “very little” for veterans.
“John McCain has not done enough for the veterans. The veterans in this country are suffering,” Trump said. “When John McCain calls 15,000 people who showed up in Phoenix, Ariz. to talk about illegal immigration a bunch of crazies, he’s doing a real disservice to this country.”
Trump also backtracked on Twitter after the event.
Captured or not, all our soldiers are heroes!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2015
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Trump said he didn’t go to Vietnam because of education deferments and a medical deferment. He said it was because of a bone spur in his foot.
When asked which foot the bone spur was in, Trump said, “Go look it up, it’s in the records.”