‘It’s a Painful Thing to Get It’: Trump Declares Civilian Honor He Gave Out Better Than Medal Of Honor — Again

Former President Donald Trump tried to clean-up his recent remarks denigrating the Medal of Honor over the weekend, but ended up instead deriding the highest military decoration in the country all over again.

Trump kicked up a firestorm of criticism last Thursday when he told a crowd of supporters that his giving Miriam Adelson, the GOP mega-donor and the wealthiest person in Israel, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was “better” than those winning the Medal of Honor. “That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian,” Trump said praising the honor he gave Adelson for her support, adding:

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 [laughs] a healthy, beautiful woman.

Trump was asked by a local Pennsylvania television station on Saturday about the ensuing controversy and replied, “I only heard when I say ‘better,’ I would rather, in a certain way, get it, because people that get the Congressional Medal of Honor — which I’ve given to many — are often horribly wounded or dead.”

“They’re often dead. They get it posthumously. When you get the Congressional Medal of Honor — I always consider that to be the ultimate, but it is a painful thing to get it. When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it’s usually for other things, like you’ve achieved great success in sports or you’ve achieved great success someplace else,” added Trump.

Trump’s odd remark echoed comments his former Chief of Staff John Kelly said Trump made to him at a military cemetery while president, saying that soldiers who died in combat are “losers” and “suckers.”

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.