VIDEO: Trump slams war record of McCain

Donald Trump blustered his way into more trouble as he criticised US senator John McCain’s war record at a conservative forum.

On Saturday, 10 Republican hopefuls in the 2016 presidential campaign converged on early-voting Iowa,

vying for support from the more than 2,000 religious conservatives crowded into an Iowa sports arena at the annual Family Leadership Summit .

Trump overshadowed a more substantive conversation by heaping fresh criticism on McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee.

Pressed on whether his recent criticism of McCain went too far, Trump went further. “He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said when the moderator described McCain as a war hero.

McCain spent more than five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

During a news conference after his appearance, Trump did not apologise but sought to clarify his remarks. “If a person is captured, they’re a hero as far as I’m concerned. ... But you have to do other things also. I don’t like the job John McCain is doing in the senate because he is not taking care of our veterans.”