WASHINGTON — On Thursday morning, in a Washington Post Live event, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg slammed President Donald Trump for not serving in the Vietnam War, saying that "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."

The 37-year-old mayor has recently risen in the polls amid a crowded Democratic presidential primary field. Buttigieg, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, made the comments in response to a question from Bob Costa asking whether Trump should have served in Vietnam.

Trump has taken some criticism for his draft deferral from the war for medical reasons, something that was allegedly done as a favor by a podiatrist whose landlord was Fred Trump, Donald's father.

Asked whether he thought that Trump actually had a disability, Buttigieg replied, "yeah, at least not that one."

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Buttigieg went on to criticize the way that Trump had used this deferment to "trivialize disability." To him, Trump "took advantage" of his wealthy upbringing to "pretend to be disabled."

"And I know that that dredges up old wounds from a complicated time, during a complicated war, but I'm also old enough to remember when conservatives talked about character as something that mattered in the presidency," he continued. "So I think it deserves to be talked about."