Sen. John McCain appeared to admonish President Trump for using his wealth and privilege to dodge the Vietnam War draft, unlike hundreds of thousands of less affluent citizens forced to fight. 
 
 “One aspect of the conflict, by the way, that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America,” the Arizona Republican told C-SPAN’s “American History TV” in an interview that aired Sunday. 
 
 “The highest income level found a doctor that would say they had a bone spur,” McCain added, apparently referencing Trump’s medical deferment. 
 
 The former fighter pilot does not mention Trump by name during the Oct. 18 recording, in which he reflects on being shot down and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese in 1967. 
 
 McCain later clarified was ragging on the system that forced men mostly of lower-income backgrounds to fight in the war. 
 
 TONIGHT - @SenJohnMcCain talks about the Vietnam War's legacy on C-SPAN, at 6 & 10pm ET. pic.twitter.com/WnZT0n8Mcn — American History TV (@cspanhistory) October 22, 2017 
 
 “If some of us are allowed not to (fight) because of our income, our position, our influence, then that is a disgrace,” McCain said during a Monday appearance on “The View,” noting men of higher income were often more able to get doctor’s notes, which led to deferments. 
 
 The six-term senator in the C-SPAN piece referenced bone spurs, calcium deposits that a doctor found on both of Trump’s heels in the 1960s, prompting the New York Military Academy cadet to be disqualified from the draft. The future commander-in-chief received four more deferments during the war to finish his education. 
 
 “This is wrong. If we are going to ask every American to serve, every American should serve,” the Vietnam war hero said. 
 
 McCain went on to serve and was imprisoned for five years, two of which were spent in solitary confinement after being nursed back to good health by a pair of captured American soldiers. 
 
 Donald Trump is shown in the 1964 Shrapnel yearbook at the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y. (Mike Groll/AP) 
 
 The senator has since been hailed a hero in the decades since his wartime ordeal, except to Trump, who mocked McCain's military record during an Iowa campaign rally in May 2016. 
 
 “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said, sparking a war of words between the GOP lawmaker. Two days before the C-Span interview, McCain slighted the Trump administration for championing "half-baked, spurious nationalism." 
 
 McCain, when speaking on “The View,” said he doesn’t think Trump is a draft dodger, nor was he angry with the POW remarks. 
 
 What really ticked him off, however, was how it hurt a 92-year-old World War II veteran living in Arizona who was in a German prison camp. 
 
 “He said, ‘Senator McCain, why does the President of the United States not like me?’” McCain recalled. “That’s hard to explain to a 92-year-old man.” 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he does not owe John McCain an apology for saying the Arizona senator is only a war hero “because he was captured.” 
 
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 Trump told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" that he won't be pulling out of the presidential race over his comments, which he made Saturday during a campaign event in Iowa. Trump said he left to a "standing ovation" after speaking at the Family Leadership Council summit. 
 
 "When I left the room, it was a total standing ovation," said Trump. "It was wonderful to see. Nobody was insulted." 
 
 When speaking about McCain on Saturday, Trump said he likes "people who weren't captured." He didn't back down when asked about the comment. 
 
 "People that fought hard and weren't captured and went through a lot, they get no credit," he said. "Nobody even talks about them. They're like forgotten, and I think that's a shame, if you want to know the truth." 
 
 Before Trump's comments Saturday, McCain had said the real estate mogul was firing up "crazies." Trump had already found himself embroiled in controversy over comments he made last month regarding Mexican immigrants. 
 
 Raddatz asked Trump if McCain's capture in Vietnam -- where he spent five years as a prisoner of war and was beaten and tortured by the North Vietnamese -- described a war hero. He reiterated what his campaign said following his comments Saturday -- that he was disappointed in the Arizona senator because of how veterans are treated in the U.S. 
 
 "I'm very disappointed in John McCain because the vets are horribly treated in this country," said Trump. "I'm fighting for the vets. I've done a lot for the vets." 
 
 Trump said veterans were treated like "third-class citizens," adding that McCain has "done nothing to help the vets." 
 
 Trump didn't serve in the Vietnam War after receiving four student deferments and an additional medical deferment after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1968. He said he would have "proudly served" but wasn't drafted because of his high lottery number. 
 
 "If I would have gotten a low number, I would have been drafted. I would have proudly served," he said. "But I got a number, I think it was 356. That’s right at the very end. And they didn't get -- I don’t believe -- past even 300, so I was -- I was not chosen because of the fact that I had a very high lottery number." 
 
 Asked if he would continue his pattern of "name-calling, using terms like 'dummy,' 'loser,' 'total losers' on Twitter and elsewhere" when he's "criticized or attacked" if he was elected president, Trump told Raddatz he only gives it back to people who attack him. 
 
 "When people attack me, I let them have it back," he said. "People are constantly attacking my hair. I don’t see you coming to my defense." 
 
 Trump has come under criticism from numerous fellow 2016 candidates on both sides of aisle. Hillary Clinton called the attack on McCain "shameful." Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the comments by Trump made him unfit to be president and said the reality TV star should withdraw from the race.
– By mocking John McCain's military record, Donald Trump has put his own record of draft deferments in the spotlight, and he's being pretty evasive about the last of his five Vietnam-era deferments, Politico reports. The campaign describes the 1968 medical deferment, which Trump says was for bone spurs in his heels, as "minor" and "short-term," but it appears to have kept him out of the war during the crucial 18 months before he drew a high draft number in December 1969, reports Politico, which notes that the biggest question is whether Trump got the deferment by bringing a letter from his family doctor citing the bone spur problem. Plenty of people of military age poorer than Trump with "no doctor but health issues bigger than bone spurs" were drafted, Politico notes. The Trump campaign, asked whether there was a doctor's letter, responded only with a general campaign statement that notes Trump's role in creating the "Vietnam War Memorial in lower Manhattan, for which he contributed a tremendous sum of money." Trump has been condemned by nearly all his GOP rivals, but in a USA Today op-ed, he sidesteps the Vietnam issue and continues to attack McCain, accusing him of abandoning veterans and saying he has "failed the state of Arizona and the country." He also blasts his GOP rivals as "failed politicians or people who would be unable to succeed in the private sector."