VFW criticizes Trump’s ‘ass’ rhetoric on Medal of Honor

Veterans of Foreign Wars has long positioned itself as a nonpartisan organization that has nothing to do with electoral politics. Lots of groups run campaign ads, issue endorsements and create super PACs, but the VFW is not one of them.

With that in mind, it becomes all the more notable when the organization publicly criticizes a presidential candidate in an election year.

In 2020, for example, an Iranian missile strike left several dozen American troops with traumatic brain injuries. Trump dismissed the injuries — the Republican called them little more than “headaches” — prompting veterans of foreign wars to call on the then-president to apologize for downplaying what happened to the troops. Trump ignored the request.

Four years later, the GOP candidate insulted veterans again, prompting another VFW response. The New York Times reported:

In case you missed it, it was late last week when Trump spoke at an event about anti-Semitism at his Bedminster golf club and was introduced by Miriam Adelson, who plays a prominent role in GOP politics. As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained, the former president, unprompted, reflected on giving Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 as part of an apparent gesture to thank the late GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

“This is the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but the civilian version,” Trump said, referring to the Medal of Honor, a military award.

“Actually, it’s a lot better because everybody (who) gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in really bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead,” Trump added. “She understands and is a healthy and beautiful woman. And they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom and she got it for — and that’s through committees and everything else.”