The Veterans of Foreign Wars criticized “flippant” comments from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump , who called a civilian award “ much better ” than the Medal of Honor , the nation’s highest military decoration.
“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 Al Lipphardt, the VFW’s national commander, in a statement Friday.
The statement from one of the nation’s largest veteran advocacy organizations comes after the former president compared the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the nation’s highest civilian honor, to the military decoration at an event in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday.
“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version,” said Trump as he referred to GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson receiving the civilian award from him in 2018.
He continued: “It’s actually much better because everyone 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. She gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman. And they’re rated equal. But she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Lipphardt, a U.S. Army veteran, said: “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.
“It is even more disappointing when these comments come from a man who already served in this noble office and should frankly already know better.”
Lipphardt, in a separate statement earlier this month, had praised both major political parties after Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris picked veterans as their running mates.
HuffPost reached out to the Trump campaign, which was not immediately available for comment.
Trump has a history of making controversial remarks about soldiers and veterans. He notably denied claims that he’d referred to U.S. service members who died in World War I as “suckers” and “losers.”
He’s also gone after John McCain on multiple occasions, both before and after the Arizona Republican’s death in 2018.
Trump mocked the late senator earlier this year over injuries he sustained during his time in the military. He said in 2015 that McCain was “not a war hero,” noting that he likes people who “weren’t captured”; McCain spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate and a Marine veteran, was asked Friday about what he’d tell veterans who think that the former president’s Medal of Honor remarks were “demeaning.”
“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 who receive military honors,” said Vance, who has recently attacked Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz , over the Minnesota governor’s military service.
“They’re two different awards, and I think the president was saying some nice things about a person that he liked, and that’s a totally reasonable thing to do.”
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