President Donald Trump unleashed another Twitter tirade against Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday, ridiculing the Connecticut Democrat for his military record in Vietnam.
"I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut (how is Connecticut is doing?). His war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud — he was never even there," Trump said on Wednesday.
"We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!"
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A spokesperson for Blumenthal was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The U.S. president arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam late Tuesday, ahead of a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday.
Shortly before the second U.S.-North Korea summit in less than a year, Trump has been meeting with the Vietnamese prime minister and other officials. He has described the Southeast Asian country as "thriving like few places on Earth."
Trump's latest Twitter post resurfaced his frequently used "Da Nang Dick" nickname for Blumenthal, who has faced questions about his military record in the past.
In a 2008 interview with The New York Times, Blumenthal claimed he had "served in Vietnam." He has since apologized for these remarks, saying he had not been as "clear or precise as I should have been about my service in the Marine Corps Reserves."
More than 3.4 million Americans were deployed to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 57,000 died there.
Trump avoided military service thanks to five draft deferments between 1964 and 1972 — four for education and one for a medical exemption, claiming bone spurs in his heels.
The president drew controversy in 2015 when he criticized Vietnam War veteran and Arizona Senator John McCain, who spent nearly six years enduring torture in a North Vietnamese prison after his plane crash landed in enemy territory. "He's not a war hero," Trump said.
"He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."
In an interview with C-SPAN about the Vietnam War in 2017, McCain took a thinly-veiled swipe at Trump over his draft deferments. He sharply criticized Americans from the "highest income level" who were able to obtain draft deferments for ailments like a "bone spur."
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