President Trump is in Vietnam to discuss nuclear arms with North Korea. Will there be an agreement on ICBMs? Will there be an official end to the Korean War? We shall see. The former is probably a pipe dream at this stage, but if we can come away with a formal ending of hostilities on the peninsula, that would be a win.
The Left is skeptical of all of this, though Obama and Bush couldn’t have managed it. Yet, in keeping with his character, Trump decided to use the opportunity to torch liberal Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) over his false claims about his Vietnam War service, which by the way, is non-existent. He never fought in Vietnam. He lied, and was rewarded by winning a Connecticut Senate seat in 2010 (via NYT):
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, whose acknowledgment last week that he had misrepresented his Vietnam record overshadowed his nomination as Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, has apologized.
“I have made mistakes and I am sorry,” he said in a statement e-mailed to The Hartford Courant by a campaign aide on Sunday night. “I truly regret offending anyone. I will always champion the cause of Connecticut’s and our nation’s veterans.”
Mr. Blumenthal, who repeated his apology in person in New Haven on Monday, came under attack on May 17 when The New York Times reported that he had sometimes claimed to have served in Vietnam, though he actually served stateside in the Marine Reserve after receiving five draft deferments.
And yes, Trump said he discussed this with Vietnamese leaders yesterday:
I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut (how is Connecticut doing?). His war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud - he was never even there. We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2019
“I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut (how is Connecticut doing?),” tweeted the president. “His war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud - he was never even there. We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!”
Even left-leaning fact-checker Snopes all but said that Blumenthal was a total liar about his supposed Vietnam War service. The summit between Trump and North Korean Kim Jong-un will last over the next couple of days.
