Donald Trump has come under fire after claiming that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he awarded to several Republican supporters and donors during his presidency, is “much better” than the Medal of Honor, the top military award for those killed or wounded in action.
Speaking at a campaign event on Thursday, Trump made the controversial statement while addressing Miriam Adelson, the widow of Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Medal of Freedom in 2018.
“[The Medal of Freedom is] actually much better because everyone [who] 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 gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman. And they’re rated equal.”
The Medal of Honor is the highest military award in the United States. It is awarded to military service members who “distinguish themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” The Presidential Medal of Freedom, on the other hand, is presented by the U.S. president to civilians who “have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors,” according to the White House.
“Donald Trump insulting Medal of Honor recipients is just a continued trend of his disrespect towards our men and women in the military,” Travis Akers, a navy veteran, wrote on X. “It’s disgusting. This is offensive on so many levels.”
Trump has a long history of making derogatory remarks about service members. In 2020, The Atlantic reported that Trump had canceled a planned visit to an American military cemetery near Paris because it was “filled with losers.” He also allegedly called the deceased military members “suckers” for getting killed.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump attacked the Gold Star family of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004. Trump also repeatedly criticized the late John McCain, the Republican senator and former presidential candidate, saying, “He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Kamala Harris’s election campaign posted a video of Trump’s remarks on X on Thursday, along with a verbatim quote of the former president’s statement. Alexander Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who testified during Trump’s first impeachment investigation, quote-posted the Harris campaign video on X, saying: “Trump dishonors Medal of Honor recipients, our nation’s highest military award for distinguished acts of valor. He deserves nothing but disdain and disqualifies himself from public office.”
During his presidency, Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to individuals such as Mariano Rivera, a former baseball player who hosted an exclusive fundraiser for him, and Roger Penske, a billionaire businessman who has donated more than $1 million to pro-Trump organizations.
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