Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Donald Trump's onetime chief of staff, has condemned the former president's comments claiming the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom as "much better" than the Medal of Honor reserved for service members, according to a new report.
“Not even close," Kelly told CNN Monday. "No equivalency of any kind.”
Kelly's comments come on the heels of two statements from Trump disparaging the Medal of Honor as an award that recipients must suffer greatly to receive.
"I would rather, in a certain way, get [the civilian honor]," Trump said on Saturday. "People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor, which I've given to many, are often horribly wounded or dead."
Kelly explained to CNN what he felt Trump left out when he drew this comparison and reached a conclusion criticized by multiple members of the armed forces.
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“Think of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Vietnam or Fallujah,” Kelly told CNN. "No president, member of Congress, judge or political appointee — and certainly no recipient of the Presidential Medal — will ever be asked to give life or limb to protect the Constitution. The two awards cannot be compared in any way. Not even close.”
Trump made this comparison last Thursday as he discussed awarding the top civilian honor to GOP donor Miriam Adelson. He argued it was “actually, much better” than the Medal of Honor “because everyone [who] gets the congressional medal of honor, that’s soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
Kelly confirmed to CNN last year that Trump as president had disparaged service members as "suckers," which the former president has argued was a "made-up quote."
The quote appeared in a 2020 story in The Atlantic that included Trump saying to Kelly in Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2017, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
