Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg accuses Donald Trump of faking a disability to avoid being drafted in Vietnam.

The former naval intelligence officer said the president’s conduct “resulted in someone else going to war in his place,” during a Washington Post event on Thursday.

Donald Trump received five deferments from the draft, four for university and one for medical reasons - a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. Buttigieg said: “I have a pretty dim view of his decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam.”

Allegations that Trump has dodged the draft date back to his 2016 campaign.

In January 2018, Senator Amy Duckworth (Democrat-Illinois), called Trump a “five-deferment draft dodger.” Last February, Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney told Congress the president told him he had no medical excuse to avoid military draft.

Last December, a New York Times investigation revealed Trump's medical exemption was diagnosed by a podiatrist who also rented a space from his father, Fred Trump.

A member of the podiatrist family told the Times he did it as a favour to Trump's family. Buttigieg argues Trump used his privileged upbringing to avoid being drafted in Vietnam.

The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. 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The 37-year-old took a seven-month leave of absence from his job as mayor of South Bend, a city of about 100,000 in the state of Indiana, in 2014 to serve in Afghanistan.

added during the event: “I mean, if he were a conscientious objector, I’d admire that, but this is somebody who, I think it is fairly obvious to most of us, took advantage of the fact that he was a child of a multimillionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place."

Buttigieg officially launched his campaign on April 14, and the polyglot, millennial and openly gay mayor from Indiana intends to make climate change, gun control and income inequalities his main campaign battles.

He is among the five leading candidates to win the leadership race of the Democrats.