Trump says civilian award is ‘much better’ than Medal of Honor

Former President Donald Trump argued Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom while in office, had received a “much better” medal compared to the highest award for military valor in action because those recipients, he said, have “been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians, “is actually much better” than the Medal of Honor, because service members who receive the nation’s highest military decoration are often wounded or awarded it posthumously. Trump was praising Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom while in office, during remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “Miriam, I watched (Sheldon Adelson, her late husband) 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,” Trump said. “She gets it and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal,” Trump said. It’s the latest in Trump’s history of making disparaging comments about military service. Early in his first presidential campaign, Trump attracted controversy by claiming then-Sen. John McCain — a political rival who served as a naval aviator during the Vietnam War and was imprisoned for more than five years by the North Vietnamese, during which he suffered injuries that would affect him for the rest of his life — was “not a war hero.” “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said at the time.