Trump Once Compared Avoiding STDs to His 'Personal Vietnam'?

[Thiệu Ngô]

In several interviews with radio host Howard Stern, Donald Trump opened up about his dating life in the 1980s.

By Nikki Dobrin


Claim: Former U.S. President Donald Trump once said that avoiding STDs in his dating life in the '80s was his “personal Vietnam."

Rating: Correct Attribution

Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a comment made by former U.S. President Donald Trump in the 1990s resurfaced on social media. On Aug. 8, 2024, a post on X claimed that Trump had once referred to avoiding sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) as his "personal Vietnam."

The post, which had been viewed 662,400 times as of this writing, featured a 25-second clip from Trump's 1997 appearance on Howard Stern's radio show. In the clip, Stern interviewed Trump, then a New York real estate mogul, about his sexual escapades.

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It is true that Trump made this remark comparing his avoidance of STD's to "his personal Vietnam" during his appearance on "The Howard Stern Show." As such, we rate this claim as "Correct Attribution."

A longer version of the clip has also been posted to YouTube.

In the video, Trump is seen in a studio being interviewed by Stern along with his co-host Robin Quivers, with the two men joking about surviving the '80s with their sexual health intact. During the conversation, Stern first compared the situation to the Vietnam War, a comparison that Trump echoed. Here is a transcript of that exchange:

Howard Stern: Now, getting back to dating, right? And when you gotta say to a woman, "Hey, listen, you gotta go to my personal doctor, and I'm gonna have you checked out," is that a tough thing to say to a woman, or you just got the b***s to say it?

Donald Trump: You know? I tell you, it's amazing. I can't even believe it. I've been so lucky, in terms of that whole world.

Howard Stern: You've never gotten a social disease.

Donald Trump: It is a dangerous world out there. It is scary. It's like Vietnam, sort of like, you know, the Vietnam era.

Howard Stern: It is. It is your personal Vietnam.

Donald Trump: It is my personal Vietnam.

Howard Stern: You've said that many times.

Donald Trump: I feel like a great and very brave soldier.

In an earlier 1993 interview with Stern, the two men discussed Trump's dating life during the 1980s' AIDS crisis. According to a 2016 BuzzFeed News report:

"You know, if you're young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam. We have our own Vietnam. It's called the dating game," he said during a discussion of Trump's well-publicized germaphobia and the ongoing AIDs epidemic.

"It's pretty dangerous out there Robin. It's like Vietnam," Trump said earlier in the interview.

"It is, it is," Stern said. "The dating scene is like Vietnam."

"Dating is like being in Vietnam," Trump said. "You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam."


Stern reflected on his 1997 radio interview with Trump in his 2019 memoir "Howard Stern Comes Again," transcribing it on page 132, and affirming that he was the one who first brought up Trump's "personal Vietnam," with Trump repeating the line.

In a 2019 interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Stern recalled his 1997 conversation with Trump, acknowledging that it was a tongue-in-cheek, "joking scenario," not meant to imply that Trump was seriously comparing his experiences to those of Vietnam veterans. The reference is at the 1 minute, 30-second mark of the interview:

Trump, now 78, is running for another shot at the presidency in the November 2024 election. Although he did not serve in the military, Trump was of age during the Vietnam War era when males 18 and older were eligible for the draft. He obtained four student draft deferments while attending college, and was later disqualified from serving, except in a time of war or national emergency, due to bone spurs in both heels. We confirmed Trump's deferment history via Selective Service records obtained from the U.S. National Archives by The Smoking Gun in 2011.