Donald Trump's controversial comments about the Medal of Honor has his presidential reelection campaign team cringing, sources tell CNN.
Trump campaign reporter Kristen Holmes on Monday said the former president's recent claims that the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom is the superior award since it requires no physical risk has his team engaging in some wishful thinking.
"They don't want him doing anything that's going to distract from his campaign against Kamala Harris," Holmes said. "They just don't want him talking about anything right now except that for the issues, particularly inflation, particularly immigration crime."
Trump has twice drawn a comparison between the two honors over the past week, first at a Bedminster press event Thursday and second during an interview in Pennsylvania Saturday when he was asked about the former remark.
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On Thursday, Trump claimed the civilian honor he awarded a GOP donor Miriam Adelson was “actually, much better” because Medal of Honor recipients are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
Asked about this comment, and the uproar that ensued, Trump tried to explain his thinking.
"I would rather, in a certain way, get [the civilian honor]," Trump said. "People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor, which I've given to many, are often horribly wounded or dead."
Holmes argued Monday that Trump may have realized he crossed a line as he wages political war against Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Trump, even if he won't admit it publicly, knows that he might have gone a bridge too far," Holmes said. "You can see him kind of trying to explain how he had come to that conclusion again, not to say that that is successful there, but that is what he is doing."
