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‘Spit in the Faces’: Trump Slammed for Doubling Down on Insulting Medal of Honor Veterans
Donald Trump is doubling down on his widely-criticized remarks from last week, when he declared the Presidential Medal of Freedom he awarded to Miriam Adelson, a billionaire Republican megadonor and the eighth-richest woman in the world, was “much better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor given to members of the U.S. Armed Forces for acts of valor, acts that have led recipients to the loss of their limbs, and sometimes to the loss of their lives, in service to their fellow soldiers and to their country.
Trump had described Medal of Honor recipients on Thursday as “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
In a scathing rebuke Friday, the Veterans of Foreign Wars blasted Trump, calling his remarks “flippant,” and “asinine.”
“When a candidate to serve as our military’s commander-in-chief so brazenly dismisses the valor and reverence symbolized by the Medal of Honor and those who have earned it, I must question whether they would discharge their responsibilities to our men and women in uniform with the seriousness and discernment necessary for such a powerful position,” VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt wrote in a statement Friday. “It is even more disappointing when these comments come from a man who already served in this noble office and should frankly already know better.”
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Lipphardt added that “the Medal of Honor is more sacred as it represents the gallantry and intrepidity of courageous and selfless service members, often at the cost of grievous wounds and even their lives. It’s because of our Medal of Honor recipients that great Americans like Miriam Adelson have the freedom to live to their fullest potential and make such lasting contributions to our great nation.”
Despite the “intense criticism,” as The Washington Post called the response to Trump’s remarks, the ex-president and GOP presidential nominee doubled down on Saturday. When asked by a local reporter in Pennsylvania about his remarks, Trump did not apologize, but continued to repeat and expand upon his original claims.
“Many veterans are upset about that, including here in Pennsylvania,” WBRE reporter Andy Mehalshick told Trump (video below), who said he would prefer to get the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom rather than the service members’ Congressional Medal of Honor because recipients of the latter “are often horribly wounded or dead. They’re often dead, they get it posthumously. And 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.”
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“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. When you get the Medal of Honor, generally speaking, and I’ve met many of them, and I’ve seen the families of many of them, this is an incredible honor, but it was a statement that is much more painful to get, because they’re oftentimes in very bad shape. I’ve seen them come up and they’ve suffered greatly, whereas the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to my knowledge, I don’t think anybody’s suffered. Other than they’ve, you know, they worked hard, and they’ve done great things. One’s a military award, one’s a civilian award. But sometimes, very painful to get the other.”
Responding to his latest remarks, Skyleigh Heinen-Uhrich, a disabled Army veteran/advocate according to her bio, wrote that Trump “continues to spit in the faces of all those who have served, he cannot help himself. He has no idea what honor and patriotism is only using the military and Veterans as pawns to campaign.”
The Washington Post also reported that “Trump has previously made comments denigrating military members. His former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed last year that Trump privately disparaged dead service members as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ when Kelly worked for Trump. Trump has denied the account, which was first written about in a 2020 Atlantic story.”
Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.
Trump tried to clarify his medal of freedom comments but he just ended up saying the same thing that got people mad in the first place pic.twitter.com/UF6zfvMf8B
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2024
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
