RNC: Trump's McCain Comments 'Have No Place in Our Party'

In a highly unusual move, the Republican National Committee issued a strong rebuke of Donald Trump’s comments about Sen. John McCain’s military service Saturday, saying his comments “have no place in our party or country.”

“He was a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said during the 2015 Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

RNC Chief Strategist and Communications Director Sean Spicer released a statement hours later:

"Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period. There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably.”

The statement was unusual because the RNC has traditionally tried to stay above the fray and not to seem like it is favoring one candidate above the other. For it to weigh in on this controversy so quickly elevates the situation into a major blow to Trump.

By the time the RNC weighed in, much of the GOP field had already blasted Trump on Twitter and campaign websites. Those issuing statements included former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent roughly five-and-half years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was repeatedly tortured, including being strung up by his broken arms. He spent two of those years in solitary confinement.

Trump received four student deferments from military service between 1964 and 1968. In Ames, he told reporters another medical deferment he received after graduating was for a bone spur in his foot. When asked which foot, Trump told reporters to look up the records.