Veterans, veterans groups and families of fallen military heroes awarded the Medal of Honor were furious Saturday that Donald Trump called the civilian award he gave to one of his megadonors "much better" than the honor given veterans who are "dead" or in "bad shape" with war wounds.
The head of the Veterans of Foreign Wars immediately shot down Trump's startling comments as so "asinine" that they raise questions about his fitness to ever be the nation's commander in chief.
"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," said the organization's National Commander Al Lipphardt.
Trump made the controversial statement at his press conference Thursday at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort when he extolled the Medal of Freedom civilian award he had given in 2018 to megadonor Miriam Adelson, 78, whom he described as "beautiful" and one of the "greatest businesswomen in the world."
The high praise came shortly after he risked his campaign income by insulting Adelson in a series of texts for hiring too many "RINOS" — Republicans in Name Only — to run her Preserve America super PAC.
He declared that Adelson's award was a step up from the Medal of Honor.
'It's actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers," Trump said. "They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets, or they're dead. She [Adelson] gets it and she's healthy, beautiful woman."
Do you think the Medal of Honor should be held in high reverence?
— Veterans For Responsible Leadership (@VetsForRL) August 16, 2024
Trump thinks it’s secondary to the medal he gives his billionaire funders.
He doesn’t care about our military or their sacrifices. pic.twitter.com/AFTaKsgUTI
Progressive veterans group VoteVets said in a statement that it "isn't just that Donald Trump doesn't respect Veterans and their sacrifice. It's that Donald Trump hates Veterans and their sacrifice, because he looks so small in comparison to them."
The Kamala Harris campaign pounced on Trump's comments, saying he "knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself."
Trump's campaign said he was referring to the experience of giving the awards, not denigrating the Medal of Honor nor the actions of military service members.
"It can be an emotionally difficult experience to give the Congressional Medal of Honor to veterans who have been wounded or tragically killed defending our country," said campaign spokesman Brian Hughes, somehow comparing a fatally or wounding combat experience to standing at a podium.
Trump's comments come at a time when "military valor" has become an issue in the campaign as running mate JD Vance attacks the value of the military contribution of Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, who served in the National Guard for 24 years. Vance served in the Marines — and doubled down Saturday on Trump's comments demeaning the Medal of Honor.
Trump never served in the military after obtaining a deferment in 1968 for "bone spurs" during the Vietnam War. It was a deferment that the daughters of the late podiatrist who provided the "diagnosis" said was done as a "favor" to Trump's father, they told the New York Times.
In a 1997 radio interview with shock jock Howard Stern Trump notoriously compared his subsequent combat-free time avoiding sexually transmitted diseases sleeping with various women during the war to what troops were experiencing. He said "vaginas" are like "potential landmines."
He laughingly called having sex my "personal Vietnam," adding: "I feel like a great and very brave soldier."
Trump has also repeatedly denigrated those who have served in the military, once referring to them as "losers" for serving their county. He also referred to the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, who was shot down in the Korean War and held as a prisoner for five years, as no "war hero."
"He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured," Trump said. "I like people that weren't captured."
Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018 during a summit with other leaders, claiming bad weather.
But his former Chief of Staff, retired 4-star Marine General John Kelly, and other senior officials said Trump didn't want to go, noting: "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers."
In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as "suckers" for getting killed, sources reported at the time.
Kelly has also said Trump didn't want to be seen with disabled veterans.
He disparaged Trump in an angry statement last year to CNN for believing those who defend their country are all "suckers" because "here is nothing in it for them."
Kelly lashed Trump for not wanting to "be seen in the presence of military amputees because 'it doesn't look good for me'" and ranted that "our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America's defense are 'losers' and wouldn't visit their graves in France."
He also lashed Trump for "cavalierly" suggesting that former Joint Chiefs of Staff head Army Gen. Mark Milley — a "selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war" — should lose his life for imagined treason.
"There is nothing more that can be said," Kelly added in his statement. "God help us."
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.
— Ted Corcoran (RedTRaccoon) (@RedTRaccoon) August 16, 2024
Trump’s comments about the Medal of Honor finally made me lose my cool. pic.twitter.com/4TkwpxieV9
