CNN
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Former Trump chief of staff and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly dismissed former President Donald Trump’s comments that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians, is “far better” than the Medal of Honor, which is awarded to military personnel. He told CNN that the two awards “are not even close to equal. They are not equal in any way.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is “awarded for good deeds, and in rare cases for other reasons, but that is not even the case,” Kelly said.
“Think of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Vietnam or Fallujah,” Kelly told CNN. “The Medal of Honor is not won, it is earned, through incredibly brave acts on the battlefield under fire, typically by very young men who joined the Army when others would not, to defend their country. Their oath to the nation is essentially the oath that the president and members of Congress take, that federal judges take, that political appointees take, and it includes: ‘…that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear faithful allegiance and loyalty to it; that I accept this obligation voluntarily, without mental reservation or intent to evade it; and that I will perform the duties well and faithfully…’
“For the soldier, the oath is sacred, and he takes it with the knowledge that if he follows through on his words he could be seriously wounded, captured, or killed. No president, no congressman, no judge, or political official – and certainly no recipient of the Presidential Medal – is ever asked to give his life or health to protect the Constitution. The two awards are in no way comparable. Not even close.”
Speaking on Thursday about awarding Republican donor Miriam Adelson the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, Trump said it was “actually much better” than the Medal of Honor, “because everyone who gets the Congressional Medal of Honor is a soldier. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit by bullets so many times, or they’re dead.”
When asked over the weekend to clarify his comments, Trump told a local Pennsylvania television station, “When I say ‘better,’ all I hear is that in some ways I would rather get it, because the people who get the Congressional Medal of Honor – which I have awarded to many – are often terribly wounded or dead. They are often dead. They get it posthumously. When you get the Congressional Medal of Honor – I always consider that the greatest thing, but it is painful to get it. When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, you usually get that for other things, like having achieved great success in sports or somewhere else.”
Last October, Kelly exclusively confirmed to CNN an earlier report in The Atlantic about Trump’s derogatory comments toward military personnel, calling Trump “a person who thinks that everyone who defends their country in uniform, gets shot down in combat, is seriously wounded, or is tortured for years as a prisoner of war, are ‘suckers’ because ‘they get nothing out of it.’ A person who doesn’t want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who, on television during the 2016 election campaign, showed open contempt for a Gold Star family — all Gold Star families — and ranted that our most precious heroes who gave their lives defending America are ‘losers’ and won’t even visit their graves in France.”
Trump denies making these remarks and said at the CNN debate in June: “That was a made-up quote.”
“To think that I would say ‘suckers and losers’ in front of generals and others – 19 people said I would never have said that,” Trump said.
And yet it is Kelly, the retired Marine general and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, who claims Trump made these remarks.
