McCain blasts system he says let Trump avoid Vietnam

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday slammed the system during the Vietnam War that he argued allowed some people to avoid serving in the military.

During an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” which McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, co-hosts, one of the hosts asked the senator if he sees President Trump as a draft dodger.

“I don’t consider him so much a draft dodger as I feel that the system was so wrong that certain Americans could evade their responsibilities to serve the country,” McCain said.

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Trump received deferments from serving in the Vietnam War due to bone spurs on his feet.

McCain, who has been publicly feuding with Trump, appeared to take a swipe at the president over his deferments in a C-SPAN interview that aired on Sunday.

“One aspect of the [Vietnam] conflict, by the way, that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America, and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur,” said McCain.

“That is wrong. That is wrong. If we are going to ask every American to serve, every American should serve,” he added.

McCain during his “The View” interview on Monday laughed when asked if he is “scared” of Trump’s recent threat to “fight back” against the senator after McCain last week blasted “spurious nationalism” in a widely praised speech.

McCain described his relationship with Trump as “almost none” when asked by one of “The View’s” co-hosts.

Trump and McCain have repeatedly criticized each other, with McCain specifically catching the president’s ire after he joined Democrats in voting against a scaled-down repeal of ObamaCare over the summer. McCain also opposed a Republican effort to repeal and replace the health-care law in September.