Former President Donald Trump once again suggested the Medal of Honor is somehow inferior to the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a campaign event in Potterville, Michigan, on Thursday — right in the middle of honoring James McCloughan, a war hero who received the Medal of Honor in the first year of Trump's presidency.
During the speech, Trump once again incorrectly referred to the award as the "Congressional Medal of Honor," a common but wrong term often used by laypeople.
"I always say, I'd rather get the presidential medal, because the guys that came in — other than you and a few others — oftentimes they've suffered greatly, right? They've suffered greatly, or they're not around. But it's our highest honor," said Trump.
This is essentially a repeat of Trump's controversial statements earlier this month, where he said the Medal of Freedom is "much better" than the Medal of Honor. Given another chance to clarify in a follow-up interview, he insisted he'd rather receive the Medal of Freedom because Medal of Honor recipients tend to have permanent battle scars — if they survive.
"People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor, which I've given to many, are often horribly wounded or dead. They're often dead," he said.
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Trump's stated distaste for veterans who were killed or wounded, which line up with past allegations that he didn't want wounded warriors in his parades and that he called Marines who fell in World War I "losers" and "suckers," triggered a wave of outrage, including from his former chief of staff John Kelly, himself a retired Marine general.
“Think of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Vietnam or Fallujah,” said Kelly. "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's remarks were also criticized by Al Lipphardt, the chief of Veterans of Foreign Wars, a nonpartisan organization that rarely wades into politics.
"These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty," said Lipphardt.
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