Trump's 'bone spurs' are a lie: Daughter of podiatrist who helped get president out of Vietnam servi

[Julian Englis]

Source: The Raw Story

The daughters of the late Dr. Larry Braunstein, a one-time podiatrist based in Queens, have told the New York Times that their father helped President Donald Trump escape getting drafted during the Vietnam War by fabricating a diagnosis of bone spurs in his feet.

56-year-old Dr. Elysa Braunstein tells the Times that her late father implied that Trump did not suffer from a debilitating foot ailment, and that he offered the bogus diagnosis as a favor to Trump patriarch Fred Trump.

“I know it was a favor,” explains Elysa Braunstein, whose account was also corroborated by her sister, Sharon Kessel. “What he got was access to Fred Trump. If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”

The daughters also believe their father was assisted by Dr. Manny Weinstein, a podiatrist who first moved into a Trump-owned apartment in the same year that the future president got his exemption from the military draft. The daughters aren’t certain that Weinstein, who passed away in 1995, helped their father concoct Trump’s foot ailment, but they said their father “often mentioned” Weinstein when discussing the Trump deferment scheme.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/trumps-bone-spurs-lie-daughter-podiatrist-helped-get-president-vietnam-service

---

The NY Times story: Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?

In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. WHAT?!?! I'M SHOCKED!!!!

[Hugin]

10. IT'S A LIE!!i!1!i

I mean, really, it's a lie.

Trump is a liar about having bone spurs.

[Mike Nelson]

2. Wow, this is...

… SMOCKING NEWS!

[YessirAtsaFact]

6. I'm gobsmocked!

Such a non-surprise

[TNNurse]

3. Duh.

[mindem]

4. Of course it was a lie

The real shock in anything about drumph would be if even the slightest little bit of truth existed in anything he did. Everything about him is a lie.

[Botany]

5. IOW

Fred Trump paid Dr. Braunstein to diagnosis Donny with bone spurs so he did
not have to go to Vietnam.

[FakeNoose]

27. Or it was payment "in kind"

Namely the doctor did it as a favor in order to gain access to Fred Trump who was a wealthy successful landlord in Queens and Brooklyn. The OP article states that Dr. Braunstein (and presumably Dr. Weinstein) would notify Mr. Trump of any problems on the property and Mr. Trump made sure they were fixed immediately. It's possible the Mr. Trump may have referred new podiatry patients to the doctors and sent them new business.

It's a different kind of payment, but I imagine it happened a lot during the Vietnam War years. It was well known that only the poor kids got drafted in those years, the rich kids mostly got off in one way or another.

[Submariner]

7. Yellow bellied draft dodging chickenhawk punk f*ckin' coward POS with low stamina

All that KFC and gravy coursing through his arteries from Xmas din-din and and that low life still lives.

[erronis]

30. You're being way too nice to the poor boytard!

[Farmer-Rick]

32. Traitor Trump is also A Draft Dodging Coward

Figures this type of person is what the RepubliCONS, little Putin and capitalist kings would offer up to be the leader of a country...very pathetic.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. MY doctor wouldn't write me a letter that claimed illness prevented me from traveling

to Germany, in order to get a refund on the airline ticket.

Guess I went to the wrong doctor.

[groundloop]

12. I'll bet it wasn't just as a favor.... probably a threat involved

Since the doctor was renting space in a trump building I can envision there being a threat of losing his lease if he didn't get Tiny a draft deferment. That's just the way trumps operate.

[AllyCat]

17. This right here

[LittleGirl]

37. ding ding ding!!! eom

[Achilleaze]

9. republican lies are dangerous for America

republican lies are dangerous for America
republican lies are dangerous for America
republican lies are dangerous for America
republican lies are dangerous for America
republican lies are dangerous for America

[beachbum bob]

11. doesn't matter wither way

[trusty elf]

13. Cadet Bogus Bonespurs

[keithbvadu2]

14. He got a 'Neatness and Order' medal at his military academy.

He got a 'Neatness and Order' medal at his military academy.

medal

[Dave Starsky]

16. That had to have also been bought and/or extorted.

That dude is the biggest slob I've ever seen. And he spreads chaos everywhere he goes.

[Freethinker65]

15. Avoiding STDs was Trump's personal Vietnam.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

72. Which is an insult to those of us who went there. n/t

[SHRED]

18. Why didn't we hear about this before he was elected??

[raccoon]

21. That, friend, is the $64,000 question. Nt

[LisaM]

24. Exactly.

So maddening.

[AllyCat]

19. Well this would certainly explain how he

Still managed to keep working, bowling, golfing, and all his other activities even though he was too injured to serve the US

[Judi Lynn]

44. Don't forget his spectacular tennis skills!

[NCjack]

20. Hmmm. A comparison of his Draft Registration physical examination report

with Dr. Ronnie Jackson's physical examination report could be very interesting.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. You didn't get a physical when you registered with SSS.

Only when it became apparent that you would be eligible for 1-A status would you be ordered to report for a physical.

Trump's medical exemption meant that he would not be called in for a physical.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. It has been 47 years since I went through this.

[generalbetrayus]

36. You are correct.

I registered for the draft on my 18th birthday in 1971, but I was not called in for a physical until October of 1972 for the 1973 draft in which I had drawn #5 (!) in the draft lottery in January 1972. Richard Nixon saved me from potential military service by calling off the 1973 draft call-up.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

38. I'm like Trump.

I had a string of deferments. In my case, they were 2-S deferments, as I was in school. They were going to run out in June 1972 as soon as I was graduated. I was called in for my physical in March (maybe) 1972. That physical would determine whether my status would change to 1-A.

I passed! My 2-S deferment ran out, and I enlisted a few days later, in June 1972. The Army stopped sending draftees to Vietnam in July 1972.

IIRC, of course.

[duforsure]

23. Just like everything else trump claims

As being the truth, it's a lie, and an act by trump to promote them all. This guy can't be trusted to ever be truthful about anything. Con artist often get into this habit of lying from years of using them to promote themselves with, and to cheat people with. Everything he claims is just another trump lie and he never can back them up. He avoided the draft because he's a coward, unless he has to talk someone to death, which is all he's got, he runs from anything like conflict he personally has to be a part of for others. But he'll be first to demand others fight for him.

[LiberalBrooke]

25. Of course this too is a lie.

He lies about everything so who would expect anything he says to be true.

[PatSeg]

26. You know

It was probably the sort of thing that happened a lot back then, especially among the more privileged. Opposition to the war was tremendous, but less lucky young men had to flee to Canada to avoid the draft.

Looking back, I wonder if these doctors had any idea what a profound effect their lies would have in the years to come. I'm sure young Donald was not the only guy to get such treatment, but he was the one who ended up as a dangerous president, who was a threat to the entire planet.

Then of course, there is GW Bush. The world probably would have been a far better place if these two spoiled rich kids had to face combat in their twenties like many of their less connected contemporaries.

[Paladin]

33. It happened with a fair amount of frequency.

People tend to forget just how unpopular that fucking war was, back then. And what steps families were willing to take, to keep their offspring from dying for nothing. Doesn't look too good on a present-day political resume, but there you are. I had a high-enough draft number that a doctor's input wasn't needed. But I had a cousin who went over there, came back with a raging case of PTSD, and ended up blowing his brains out. All for nothing.

[EX500rider]

43. Yeah I don't hold it against anyone, draft dodging was the national sport at the time.

Unpopular wars be unpopular.

[LisaM]

47. But we're talking about people who supported the war in Vietnam ducking it.

Cheney, Limbaugh, Bush, (presumably) Trump, etc. Meanwhile, equally privileged people like Al Gore and John Kerry, who DID NOT support the war, went and served.

What bothers me is that the list of GOP draft-dodgers above weren't against the Vietnam war at all.

[geralmar]

57. A bit of personal history

In college I joined the Young Americans for Freedom, perhaps the only student group at the University of Michigan that actively supported the war. A month before my graduation I chatted with the YAF vice president who asked me my plans after college. I told him I planned to enlist in the Army and expected to be sent to Vietnam. When he blanched and his eyes got wide I asked what was wrong. He replied: "Just because we support the war doesn't mean we want to go off and fight in it."

[LisaM]

60. Goodness.

I guess he was honest, at least, but good grief. (And, Go Blue!!)

[PatSeg]

45. Yes

My generation knew so many men who were severely damaged by the war and I can't really remember any friends or acquaintances who were in favor of the war. I had several friends who married tortured vets and dealt with their nightly terrors.

But then you have a screw-up like GW Bush, who was fortunately able to get out of Vietnam by joining the Texas Air National Guard, but he rarely showed up for duty and STILL publicly supported the war. Then he becomes president and just can't get enough of playing soldier with other people's children. Such deadly hypocrisy does not deserve a pass.

[Paladin]

46. I hope you're not suggesting that I'm giving GWB or trump a pass on their post-war activities.

That cousin of mine killed himself almost 40 years ago, tearing a gigantic hole in my heart and the heart of my family. All for nothing.

[PatSeg]

50. Oh no, of course not

Obviously, we can be opposed to that horrid senseless war and the pain it caused and still be outraged by entitled rich brats like GWB and Donald Trump. GW didn't oppose the war, he just opposed putting his own sorry ass on the line. Trump thought he could buy whatever he wanted and still does. Then he accepted a Vet's Purple Heart at a campaign rally and talked about holding a military parade.

The Vietnam era was a complex time and most things were not black and white. Right now I'm watching reruns of This is Us and I'm really having a hard time getting through the Vietnam War segments. As a woman, it is hard for me to imagine what all those young men went through as they waited for the lottery to be announced. Most of them were just kids.

[Whiskeytide]

67. The Drs probably saved lives. trump would...

... likely have qualified to go in as an officer. (He has degrees from Fordham and Wharton by then, I think). He would likely have led men in some capacity. His narcissism and unwillingness to learn anything would surely have resulted in stupid decisions and wasted lives.

I’m wildly speculating, of course. But I really have trouble picturing him as capable of anything, let alone leading mean in combat.

[PatSeg]

69. That's a really good point

Leadership is not his strong suit. What a nightmare he would have been.

[Doodley]

28. So, if that doctor had not lied, Trump might have been killed in action, instead of a good man, and

we would be saved from this nightmare.

[volstork]

39. Yep.

[EarthFirst]

73. Nah; he'd have been 'in the rear; with the gear...'

His privilege would have secured a desk job pushing papers.

[Scurrilous]

29. K&R

[Politicub]

31. Everything about this putrid hose-beast is a lie

Every. Single. Thing.

And to top it off, he whines about how much of a victim he is over the holidays.

[pwb]

34. Veterans always knew it was a lie.

.

[radical noodle]

35. Not exactly a surprise

Look at Cheney and others who weren't drafted due to suspicious "illnesses."

[radical noodle]

65. That sounds like Cheney

I'm sure many of the young men who served in Vietnam had other priorities they had to put on the back burner.

[The Wielding Truth]

40. He's been con-ning all his life. Raised to be "THE BEST LIAR AND CONMAN EVER"!

[elmac]

41. The Flim Flam President

[canetoad]

42. This proves

How fucking cheap the Trumps are; Fred could have slung the podiatrist a few thousand bucks to save his golden boy but no. He traded off the bone spurs story for just doing what any responsible landlord should be doing - building repairs.

[keithbvadu2]

48. Do bone spurs go away? Would they be listed on his physical by Adm Ronny Jackson?

Do bone spurs go away?

Would they be listed on his physical by Adm Ronny Jackson?

[peekaloo]

49. Now if we could just find a proctologist who will label him as contagious

and implement immediate quarantine from the world........

[RainCaster]

70. We all know where his tweet inspiration comes from

A proctologist fits right in to that image.

[riversedge]

51. So, 3 docs have lied so far that we know to help the #trumpCrimeFamily

[ginnyinWI]

52. There are so many things to call him.

But let's look at how history is going to see him: worst president ever.

[Pepsidog]

53. Coward

[KWR65]

54. Yeah! Rush Limbaugh got out of the draft because of a butt cyst.

MAGA by making the poor do the fighting.

[Honeycombe8]

55. Too late. The time to confess this knowledge was during his campaign.

It's too late, now. Although it's interesting and confirms what most already knew: it was a fabrication to get the yella bellied draft dodger out of service.

It probably wouldn't have made any difference in the campaign, though. If the Access Hollywood tape didn't have an effect, then nothing would. Still, I'm not fond of these confessions of knowledge of fraud after the damage has been done, rather than before.

[Rhiannon12866]

56. Not a big surprise - his entire life is full of lies

[YOHABLO]

58. Did anyone buy the 'bone-spur' excuse in the first place?

[MrScorpio]

63. Everything about Trump is a lie

How is that even possible?

[trueblue2007]

64. ASS HOLE COWARD

[SunSeeker]

66. K & R for exposure.

[Judi Lynn]

68. Trump tried to show off his bone spur to his biographer: 'I didn't see anything'

SARAH K. BURRIS
26 DEC 2018 AT 23:30 ET

Writer and researcher Michael D’Antonio recalled an odd encounter with President Donald Trump when the two discussed the ticket he scored out of the Vietnam War.

Wednesday, the daughter of a podiatrist revealed that her father was asked by Fred Trump to examine his son and give him a diagnosis that would prevent him from being drafted.

. . .

The biographer then recalled a time Trump showed off his foot.

“This is the odd thing: He may have been examined,” the biographer said. “He took off his shoes and tried to show me these bone spurs. I didn’t see anything.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/trump-tried-show-off-bone-spur-biographer-didnt-see-anything/?utm_source=push_notifications

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

71. My reaction to this