Pete Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender and U.S. Navy veteran, accused President Trump Thursday of pretending to have an injury in order to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, saying the commander-in-chief manipulated the system to get a diagnosis that allowed him to skip the war — forcing the nation to send someone else in his place.
“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,” Mr. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., said at a Washington Post event.
Mr. Trump received a medical exemption from the military in 1968 after being diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels. It led to the first of five military deferments — four of which were for education.
Mr. Trump has maintained that the diagnosis was above board in the face of questions surrounding whether his claim was bogus.
Pressed on whether he truly believed Mr. Trump faked a disability, Mr. Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve, countered, “Do you believe he has a disability?”
“I mean if he were a conscientious objector, I’d admire that, but this is somebody who I think it is fairly obvious to most of us took advantage of the fact that he was a child of a multi-millionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so somebody could go to war in his place,” he said.
“I know that dredges up old wounds from a complicated time during a complicated war, but I am also old enough to remember when conservatives talked about character as something that mattered in the presidency, and so I think it deserves to be talked about.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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