Donald Trump won’t apologize for comments he made on Saturday suggesting that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was only considered a “war hero” because he was captured.
Trump, who also said on Saturday that he likes “people who weren’t captured,” prompted a quick condemnation from his fellow Republican presidential candidates.
Despite the strong backlash, Trump has not backed down from his remarks about McCain and insists that he believes the senator is a war hero. In a Sunday op-ed in USA Today, Trump claimed that the media has been “distorting my words.”
Trump wrote that McCain “abandoned” U.S. veterans and criticized the senator’s foreign policy views.
“The reality is that John McCain the politician has made America less safe, sent our brave soldiers into wrong-headed foreign adventures, covered up for President Obama with the VA scandal and has spent most of his time in the Senate pushing amnesty. He would rather protect the Iraqi border than Arizona’s,” he wrote.
“A number of my competitors for the Republican nomination have no business running for president. I do not need to be lectured by any of them. Many are failed politicians or people who would be unable to succeed in the private sector,” Trump continued.
During a brief phone interview with NBC’s “The Today Show” on Monday morning, Trump again declined to apologize for his remarks. Instead, he brought up McCain’s recent remarks that Trump has “fired up the crazies” in Arizona.
