Donald Trump is doubling down on his widely-criticized remarks from last week, when he declared the Presidential Medal of Freedom he awarded to Miriam Adelson, a billionaire Republican megadonor and the eighth-richest woman in the world, was “much better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor given to members of the U.S. Armed Forces for acts of valor, acts that have led recipients to the loss of their limbs, and sometimes to the loss of their lives, in service to their fellow soldiers and to their country.
Trump had described Medal of Honor recipients on Thursday as “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
In a scathing rebuke Friday, the Veterans of Foreign Wars blasted Trump, calling his remarks “flippant,” and “asinine.”
“When a candidate to serve as our military’s commander-in-chief so brazenly dismisses the valor and reverence symbolized by the Medal of Honor and those who have earned it, I must question whether they would discharge their responsibilities to our men and women in uniform with the seriousness and discernment necessary for such a powerful position,” VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt wrote in a statement Friday. “It is even more disappointing when these comments come from a man who already served in this noble office and should frankly already know better.”
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Lipphardt added that “the Medal of Honor is more sacred as it represents the gallantry and intrepidity of courageous and selfless service members, often at the cost of grievous wounds and even their lives. It’s because of our Medal of Honor recipients that great Americans like Miriam Adelson have the freedom to live to their fullest potential and make such lasting contributions to our great nation.”
Despite the “intense criticism,” as The Washington Post called the response to Trump’s remarks, the ex-president and GOP presidential nominee doubled down on Saturday. When asked by a local reporter in Pennsylvania about his remarks, Trump did not apologize, but continued to repeat and expand upon his original claims.
“Many veterans are upset about that, including here in Pennsylvania,” WBRE reporter Andy Mehalshick told Trump (video below), who said he would prefer to get the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom rather than the service members’ Congressional Medal of Honor because recipients of the latter “are often horribly wounded or dead. They’re often dead, they get it posthumously. And when you get the Congressional Medal of Honor, I always consider that to be the ultimate but it is a painful thing to get it.”
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“When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it’s usually for other things, like you’ve achieved great success in sports, or you’ve achieved great success someplace else. When you get the Medal of Honor, generally speaking, and I’ve met many of them, and I’ve seen the families of many of them, this is an incredible honor, but it was a statement that is much more painful to get, because they’re oftentimes in very bad shape. I’ve seen them come up and they’ve suffered greatly, whereas the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to my knowledge, I don’t think anybody’s suffered. Other than they’ve, you know, they worked hard, and they’ve done great things. One’s a military award, one’s a civilian award. But sometimes, very painful to get the other.”
Responding to his latest remarks, Skyleigh Heinen-Uhrich, a disabled Army veteran/advocate according to her bio, wrote that Trump “continues to spit in the faces of all those who have served, he cannot help himself. He has no idea what honor and patriotism is only using the military and Veterans as pawns to campaign.”
The Washington Post also reported that “Trump has previously made comments denigrating military members. His former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed last year that Trump privately disparaged dead service members as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ when Kelly worked for Trump. Trump has denied the account, which was first written about in a 2020 Atlantic story.”