American war decorations, left to right: Distinguished Service Medal, Congressional Medal of Honor, and Distinguished Service Cross. | Source: Bettmann / Getty
Here’s a question: When are these so-called patriots of the Republican party and the MAGA world going to check Donald Trump for his glaring lack of respect for the troops?
They could have denounced Trump in 2015 when the accused-draft-dodger-in-chief said this about late combat veteran John McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” If not then, the loud and proud jingoists who claim they love this country and the servicemen and women who defend it could have checked Trump when an allegation was co-signed by at least one of his own former senior administration officials that he called U.S. military soldiers killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” If not then, how about when he allegedly disrespected the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson by telling her the Black veteran who died in combat in 2017 knew “what he signed up for.” (Trump has also been accused of mocking Johnson’s death.)
But since it doesn’t seem to matter to the MAGA cultists that their clothless emperor has a long and detailed history of disrespecting veterans and their families, they probably won’t bat an eye at Trump after he bragged that the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a “better” award than the Medal of Honor because that medal is only received by “soldiers” who are either “dead” or in “bad shape” because they’ve been shot so many times. (I feel like some of y’all think I’m exaggerating. Nah—he said all of that.)
From NBC News:
Speaking at a campaign event intended to discuss antisemitism, Trump was introduced by Miriam Adelson, a wealthy Republican donor and widow of Sheldon Adelson, who pumped millions of dollars of his own money into electing Republican candidates. He died in 2021.
“I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Trump said at his New Jersey resort.
“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump continued, referring to the highest military honor bestowed for valor in combat. The Medal of Honor is often mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor. “But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” Trump concluded. “She gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she got it for — and that’s through committees and everything else.”
So, a rich Republican donor and widow of another rich Republican donor received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for—hell, I don’t know—giving a buttload of money to other rich Republicans, and Trump, while boasting about granting her the honor, just couldn’t help but to play a childish and transparently insecure game of “mine is bigger than yours” against the Medal of Honor, which, lest we forget, was only even relevant because he went out of his way to bring it up.
Meanwhile, Trump’s royal butt-sniffer of a running mate, J.D. Vance, is reminding us of the boundlessness of his hypocrisy by defending Trump’s remark and gaslighting the populace by pretending the ex-president didn’t say what he clearly said.
“I don’t think him complimenting and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those received military honors,” Vance told reporters during a campaign stop in Milwaukee. “They are two different awards. And think, the president was saying some nice things about a person he liked and that is a totally reasonable thing to do.”
Look, it’s understandable that, as Trump’s VP pick, it’s part of Vance’s job to play clean-up when his partner on the GOP ticket says something stupid and offensive—and we all know calling that a full-time job is the understatement of the millennium—but there’s being disingenuous, and then there’s treating people like you have zero respect for their intelligence. Vance couldn’t possibly be so dense that he believes anyone thinks Trump was “denigrating” veterans simply because he complimented the Medal of Freedom recipient. People know Trump was “denigrating” soldiers because he literally said his medal was better than their medal because they are “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.” That would be the “Denigrating” language. The compliment Trump paid to Adelson has nothing to do with it, and Vance knows that.
Mind you, earlier this month Vance attacked the 24-year-long military record of Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, after he came across a video clip Harris’ campaign posted, in which Walz spoke to a crowd about gun control, saying, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.” Vance took it upon himself to interpret that comment as Walz claiming he was in combat, which he wasn’t. He also never said he was.
From the New York Times:
“I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did,” Mr. Vance said.
Mr. Walz was deployed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, but not in a combat zone.
“The governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times,” Mr. Moussa said. “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”
