Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday continued his criticism of fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying that Trump owes Sen. John McCain a personal apology for saying on Saturday he isn't a war hero.
"Until Mr. Trump apologizes directly to John McCain and also to the veterans of this country, I don't think he has the character or the temperament to hold the highest position in this country," Perry said Sunday on "Meet the Press."
At Saturday's Iowa Family Leadership Summit, Trump mocked McCain's war record after McCain called people who showed up at Trump's anti-illegal immigration rally in Arizona as "crazies."
"He’s not a war hero," Trump said of McCain. "He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured. ... Perhaps he is a war hero, but right now, he said some very bad things about a lot of people."
Perry and most of Republican candidates denounced the statement. McCain is seen as a moderate in the party, but even those who disagree with him on issues are typically quick to note his service when he was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" in North Vietnam.
Perry said Trump's comments puzzle him.
"I really don't understand his strategy here of taking on a bullet that went through John McCain and a hit a lot of us that wore the uniform of this country," Perry told "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd. "We need someone to be bringing this country together."
Still, Perry said he has no problem appearing on stage with Trump, the current frontrunner in some polls, so he can take him on over the issues.
"I'm real comfortable being on the stage with him and confronting him on a host of issues he's just wrong on," Perry said. "There's one thing to spew invectives and to spew rhetoric out there, but America's looking for somebody that's got some solutions. And I'll be real honest with you, I haven't heard any solutions coming from Donald Trump. Just rhetoric."
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