Trump presents Miriam Adelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 16, 2018.
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
For years, Donald Trump has been denying a claim from his own former White House chief of staff John Kelly that he once called dead veterans “suckers” and “losers.” President Joe Biden brought up the quote frequently when he was running against Trump, along with other allegations of his rival’s disrespect for service members. Now that Trump is running against Kamala Harris, his campaign has attacked her running mate, Tim Walz, by questioning claims Walz made about his National Guard service. So you might think Trump would make sure not to say anything that could even be construed as disrespectful to veterans.
But of course, staying on message isn’t Trump’s strong suit.
Thus, during a generally weird press conference at his home in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, Trump decided to pontificate on why the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, is “much better” than the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration.
Trump’s remarks are worse in context. He was sucking up to billionaire GOP donor Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018, explaining this week that the honor she received is preferable because the soldiers who get the Medal of Honor are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.” Here are Trump’s full remarks comparing the two awards:
I have to say, Miriam, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian, it’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version.
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.
These are both high honors, and it’s weird that Trump is pondering which is “better.” But it’s particularly offensive that Trump is denigrating an award recognizing military-service members who demonstrate “gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” because honorees are wounded or killed in their acts of heroism. The Medal of Freedom is awarded to people who have made “especially meritorious contributions” to the United States. What that means is up to the president’s discretion, and the list of honorees chosen by Trump also included Rush Limbaugh, Devin Nunes, and Jim Jordan.
Miriam Adelson, the widow of GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, is the fifth-richest woman in America and the richest Israeli, with an estimated worth of $30 billion. It appears Trump was trying to patch things up with Adelson after he had an aide “fire off a series of angry text messages” to his benefactor. The New York Times reported last week:
The texts were particularly jarring because Mrs. Adelson and Mr. Trump had a friendly meeting just a week earlier at the Republican National Convention, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The texts complained about the people running Mrs. Adelson’s super PAC, Preserve America, into which she is pouring millions of dollars to support Mr. Trump.
At the time, Preserve America was spending nearly $18 million on a week’s worth of ads aiding Mr. Trump in three battleground states. The texts said that the officials running Preserve America were “RINOs” — Republicans in name only — and that Mrs. Adelson’s late husband would never have tolerated that, the people said.
The broader point of the Times piece was that Trump’s richest donors want to see him “recalibrating after a series of damaging mistakes.” Oops! Better roll the number on that tally of “days since Trump said something offensive and off-message” back to zero.
