John Fogerty: 'Confounding' That Trump Campaign Played 'Fortunate Son' at Rally

By Morgan Gstalter, The Hill

12 September 20

ock icon John Fogerty on Friday said it was “confounding” that President Trump's campaign would use his hit song “Fortunate Son” at a rally given the song’s blunt criticisms about class privilege during the Vietnam War.

The former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman made a video explaining his experience writing the song after the Trump campaign played the hit while the president walked off Air Force One ahead of his rally in Freeland, Mich., on Thursday.

“I wrote the song back in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War," Fogerty said in a video. “By the time I wrote the song, I had already been drafted and had served in the military. And I’ve been a livelong supporter of our guys and gals in the military, probably because of that experience.”

Fogerty said he wrote the song, in part, because he was “upset” about how rich people with privilege and money could avoid the draft.

“I found that very upsetting that such a thing could occur and that’s why I wrote ‘Fortunate Son,’” he said. "That was the inspiration for the song." 

He noted the opening lyrics of the song read: “Some folks are born, made to wave the flag / Ooh, their red, white and blue / And when the band plays ‘Hail to the Chief’ / Ooh, they point the cannon at you.”

Fogerty said that’s “exactly what happened” in Lafayette Square near the White House in June when federal officers used force to clear Black Lives Matter protesters ahead of Trump's visit to a nearby church for a photo-op.

“It’s a song I could have written now, so I find it confusing, I would say, that the president has chosen to use my song for his political rallies, when in fact it seems like he is probably the fortunate son,” he concluded.

Trump received five deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam War. He was was granted a 1-Y medical deferment for a bone spurs diagnosis, in addition to four educational deferments, that allowed him to avoid the draft.

Democrats have criticized Trump over the deferments, with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran who lost both of her legs when her helicopter was shot down over Iraq, nicknaming Trump “Cadet Bone Spurs.”

Trump’s former personal attorney and self-described “fixer” Michael Cohen last year testified before Congress that Trump’s claims about a medical condition were false.

In his opening statement before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen said that Trump told him there “was no surgery” for bone spurs and instructed him not to answer reporters’ specific questions about his draft deferment.

“He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment,” Cohen added. “He finished the conversation with the following comment. ‘You think I’m stupid? I wasn’t going to Vietnam.’”

In 2018, the daughters of a New York podiatrist Larry Braunstein told The New York Times that they believed their father gave Trump the bone spurs diagnosis as a favor to Trump’s father, who was the doctor’s landlord.

“I know it was a favor,” said Elysa Braunstein, whose father died in 2007. The Trumps sold the building in 2004.

“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” she continued. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”

Trump had told the Times during the 2016 campaign that he did not remember the name of the doctor who gave him the diagnosis.