Donald Trump boasted that he “would have won Vietnam very quickly” had he been president during the decades-long conflict, as the U.S.-Iran peace deal hangs in the balance.
The president joined CNBC’s Squawk Box by phone Tuesday morning where he spoke for more than 30 minutes about the Iran war, his pick for Fed chair Kevin Warsh, oil prices and the White House ballroom.
The Vietnam digression came as Trump compared the Iran conflict, which began nearly two months ago, with the length of other wars that America has been embroiled in.
“I just looked at a little chart: World War I, four years and three months. World War II, six years. Korean War, three years. Vietnam, 19 years. Iraq, eight years — I’m five months [in Iran],” Trump said.
“I would have won Vietnam very quickly. I would have, if I were president.”
Unlike most American men of his generation, 79-year-old Trump avoided military service in Vietnam despite the U.S. having a mandatory draft at the time. The U.S. was involved militarily in Vietnam from about 1954 until 1975 and over 58,000 American service members were killed in the armed conflict.
In 1968, a podiatrist who rented New York office space from his father, Fred Trump, told a draft board that the future president had bone spurs in his heels, rendering him ineligible to be conscripted into service.
He was granted four student deferments during his time as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. But when he became eligible to be drafted once more upon his graduation, he quickly obtained a medical deferment that kept him from being conscripted, thanks to one of his real estate mogul father’s tenants.
According to The New York Times, Trump presented the draft board with a letter from Dr. Larry Braunstein, a Queens-based podiatrist, which stated that he had bone spurs in both heels. Braunstein’s daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, told the Times that her father had told her that he’d given Trump the letter as a favor to his father.
Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress in 2019 that Trump never provided him with any documentation to support the diagnosis of bone spurs when he was questioned about Trump’s medical deferments during the 2016 presidential election.
“Mr. Trump claimed (his medical deferment) was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery,” Cohen said.
“He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.”
Trump’s flippant boast about his purported ability to easily resolve conflicts that dragged on for decades under multiple administrations comes as his own administration is preparing for yet another round of talks with Iranian representatives in an effort to end the war he launched nearly two months ago.
A temporary ceasefire that had been implemented by both sides is due to expire Wednesday evening, and Trump has warned that he’s unlikely to agree to an extension if a permanent deal to end the conflict is not reached.
After claiming Iran had violated the terms of the soon-to-expire ceasefire in a Truth Social post, he told CNBC he expects U.S. forces to resume airstrikes.
“I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with,” he said. “But we’re ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.”
Asked about the possibility of extending a ceasefire, the US president said: “I don’t want to do that. We don’t have that much time.”
Both sides are set to send representatives to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, for another round of talks that could begin as soon as Wednesday.
The American side is expected to be represented once more by Vice President JD Vance along with Trump’s roving peace envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Vance’s presence was requested by Tehran as a condition of participating in the talks, as previous rounds of negotiations with Witkoff and Kushner have ended with surprise bombing campaigns.
Two Iranian officials told the New York Times that the delegation could be headed by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iranian parliament, who led the last round of negotiations.
The talks, should they actually occur, are taking place amid an ongoing standoff between the U.S. and Iran over marine traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite the ceasefire, Trump has insisted on keeping a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in place while demanding Tehran refrain from attempting to assert military control over the crucial waterway.
The U.S. Navy also interdicted and boarded an Iranian tanker in the Arabian Sea after it attempted to cross a blockade line. Trump has said the blockade would remain in place until Iran allows traffic to resume passage through the strait.
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