Pete Buttigieg believes Trump 'faked a disability' to avoid the Vietnam draft

Pete Buttigieg doesn't want to give President Trump his attention.

Yet that's just what the 2020 candidate did during an interview with The Washington Post's Robert Costa broadcast live on Thursday. After asserting that "any energy that goes [Trump's] way ... turns into a form of food. He just devours it and gets bigger," Buttigieg went on to dispute the legitimacy of Trump's bone spur exception to the Vietnam War draft.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and an Afghanistan veteran, has noticeably avoided talking about Trump on the campaign trail. Still, Buttigieg said Thursday he has to respond "when [Trump] lies" or "when he does something wrong." A prime example of that seems to be when Trump "use[d] his privileged status to fake a disability to avoid serving in Vietnam," Buttigieg continued.

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Also in the Thursday interview, Buttigieg agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) assessment that Trump engaged in a "cover up." When asked if Trump is a racist, Buttigieg said "I think so." Kathryn Krawczyk