Trump statue mocking president’s infamous ‘draft-dodging bone spurs’ appears in DC

A statue mocking President Donald Trump over his medical exemption from the Vietnam War as a young man has appeared near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., two days before Veterans Day.Entitled “The Foot Soldier,” the gold statue depicts the president seated on a granite pedestal examining his right foot having removed his shoe, a reference to how Queens podiatrist Dr Larry Braunstein, a Trump family tenant, diagnosed him with bone spurs in 1968. The monument, which also appears to nod to Trump’s own attempts to make over D.C.’s public spaces, sits on Madison Drive NW between 7th and 9th Streets opposite the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.A new satirical statue of President Donald Trump, mocking his draft deferrals from the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, has been erected near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (Getty)A plaque fixed to its base reads: “We honor the service and sacrifice of our Commander in Chief, Donald J Trump. He’s a soldier in spirit, who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs. “We salute a leader who knows you can’t spell sacrifice without ‘I,’ and a warrior who reminds us that sometimes when you’re called to stand up, it’s best to just sit down and rest your feet.”A second inscription quotes a Trump Facebook post circa August 2013 that reads: “I can be very military.” The president received five deferrals from the Vietnam conflict in the late 1960s, four because of his college studies at Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania and the fifth because of the medical condition. The Trump statue was unveiled by a mascot named ‘Toey,’ who mocked the president’s style by proclaiming himself: ‘The hugest toe. The largest toe that anyone’s ever seen.’ (Getty)The guerrilla art collective behind the new statue, The Secret Handshake, said in a statement: “As the president continues to wage a war and threaten new ones, it’s time to harken back to a time when Donald Trump would do whatever it takes to stay out of combat.”Its unveiling Monday was presided over by a toe-shaped mascot, “Toey,” who told The Washington Post: “Draft dodger? I hardly know her.” Imitating Trump, he added: “I’m the biggest toe. The hugest toe. Huge. Hugest toe. Largest toe that anyone’s ever seen.”White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement Monday: “Trump Derangement Syndrome is a sick and incurable disease that has rotted the brains of these Democrat activists. “President Trump will never waver in fighting for and protecting the American people.”A golden toilet sculpture was installed on the National Mall in March by the same guerrilla art group (Getty)The Secret Handshake previously put up a giant gold toilet in tribute to the president, a replica of Nancy Pelosi’s desk featuring a pile of fake excrement in response to the actions of Trump’s supporters during the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, and, more recently, a memorial called the “Iran War Participation Trophy.”Trump’s failure to serve in the military has often been used as a stick with which to beat him throughout his presidency, with his estranged former personal attorney Michael Cohen telling Congress in 2019 there was no record of his receiving treatment for bone spurs and that he had once told him: “You think I’m stupid? I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”