Trump calls civilian presidential medal ‘much better’ than top military honor

Donald Trump has been criticized after he claimed that the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he bestowed on people including Republican supporters and donors during his time in office, is “much better” than the top military award for those killed or wounded in action: the Medal of Honor.

Speaking at a campaign event on Thursday, Trump made the claim as he addressed Miriam Adelson, the widow of the 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 country’s highest military award. It is awarded to a military service member who “distinguishes himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty”.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians, is presented by the US president to those 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 denigrating service members.

In 2020 the Atlantic reported that Trump had canceled a planned visit in France to an American military cemetery near Paris because it was “filled with losers”. Trump also called the dead military members “suckers” for getting killed.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump attacked the gold star family of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Cpt Humayun Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004. And Trump also repeatedly criticized the late John McCain, the Republican senator who ran for president against Barack Obama in 2008.

“He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said in an interview .

Related: Rush Limbaugh given presidential medal of freedom during State of the Union

Kamala Harris ’s election campaign posted a video of Trump’s remarks to X on Thursday, along with a paragraph which quoted the former president verbatim.

Alexander Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US army who testified during Trump’s first impeachment investigation, quote-posted the Harris campaign on X, saying: “Trump dishonor[s] 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.”

Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to Mariano Rivera, a former baseball player who hosted an exclusive fundraiser for him, and to Roger Penske, a billionaire businessman who has donated more than $1m to pro-Trump organizations.