Trump salutes US war heroes
Donald Trump drew cheers from thousands of bikers and war veterans Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial during a stop at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally, where he tried to mend the fences nearly a year after he angered vets for saying Sen. John McCain isn’t a war hero because he was captured.
Despite pressure to apologize, Trump made no mention of McCain, but won points for pledging to beef up the military, “knock the hell” out of ISIS and end waiting times for veterans’ health care.
“In many cases, illegal immigrants are taken much better care [of ] by this country than our veterans, and that’s not going to happen,” Trump said at the event to honor prisoners of wars and soldiers missing in action.
“Thousands of people are dying . . . our vets, our most cherished people,” Trump told a largely friendly crowd, while a few held signs dissing him for not doing military service. “Thousands of people are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore.”
Viet vet McCain has called on Trump to apologize to prisoners saying last summer that he likes “people who weren’t captured.”
Former Sen. Bob Dole said this weekend Trump owed the Arizona senator and decorated POW an apology for insulting his war record.
Trump hasn’t retracted the statement but has tried to build inroads by honoring vets at rallies and raising money for their charities.
He is expected to announce Tuesday the recipients of some $6 million in donations for his veterans fund-raising event earlier this year.
Rolling Thunder National spokesperson Nancy Regg later said that Trump’s comments were “great” and that there was no need to apologize to McCain.
“He was right on with what we are fighting for and what we need,” Regg said of Trump.
“We feel the same way about McCain,” she said. “We will respect him as a POW. We will respect him as someone who fought in Vietnam. But when he got into office, he didn’t help the veterans.”
'Thousands of [vets] are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore.' Donald Trump