Donald Trump’s dismissive comments about Senator John McCain’s military service in the Vietnam War were “shameful,” former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday, joining most of her would-be Republican presidential rivals in defending the former prisoner of war.
Hours after the real estate mogul set off an uproar in the Republican Party with his suggestion that McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was “not a war hero,” Clinton lambasted Trump in a speech at the Arkansas Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner.
Clinton, who served in the Senate with McCain, broadened her critique of Trump beyond his comments about the Arizona senator to include Trump’s incendiary remarks about immigration — which set off his feud with McCain.
“There is nothing funny about” how Trump has talked about immigrants or “the insults he’s directed at a genuine war hero, Senator John McCain,” Clinton told her audience in North Little Rock. “It’s shameful.”
Noting the deference many Republicans have accorded the outspoken billionaire, whose take-no-prisoners speaking style has rocketed him towards the top of his party’s presidential field, Clinton questioned why it “took so long for most of his fellow Republican candidates to stand up to him.”
Some Republicans, including McCain, have publicly disagreed with Trump’s comments on immigration, including a charge that Mexicans illegally crossing the border are “rapists.” However, it was not until Trump attacked McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, that condemnation became more vocal and widespread.
Almost every major Republican candidate running for president, with the notable exception of Senator Ted Cruz, rounded on Trump on Saturday after he pooh-poohed McCain’s time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, where the US Navy pilot was tortured to the point where he says he considered suicide.
In her visit to North Little Rock, which brought her back to the state where she was once first lady, Clinton also commented on Thursday’s shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A Marine from Arkansas was among the five people killed by a gunman who opened fire at two military facilities there.
The incident “breaks our hearts but it also stiffens our resolve,” she said. “We will not be intimidated by terrorists. We’ll be strong, we’ll be smart and we’ll defend our country and our values.”
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