Republican Governor Rebukes Donald Trump’s ‘Asinine Comments’

New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu on Sunday rebuked former President Donald Trump’s recent “asinine comments” about the Presidential Medal of Freedom being “better” than the Medal of Honor.
At a campaign event in New Jersey on Thursday, Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, said the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a “better” award than the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Medal of Honor, which is the United States Armed Forces’ highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American armed forces who have distinguished themselves “through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, meanwhile, is awarded to civilians “who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
“It’s the equivalent of the congressional Medal of Honor,” the former president said about the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “But the civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone that gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
Adding: “[Adelson] gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Trump was referring to Miriam Adelson, a Republican donor who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from him in 2018 for opening two research centers aimed at stemming substance abuse and the work of the Adelson Medical Research Foundation, established to combat life-threatening illnesses.
In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Sununu rebuked Trump’s remarks, adding that while they are not the first “asinine comments” he’s made, it won’t be a game changer amid this year’s election.
When asked by CNN host Jake Tapper if he agrees with the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) who called Trump’s comments “asinine,” Sununu said, “Yeah they are asinine comments. There’s no doubt about that.”
The GOP governor added: “I don’t think they are the first asinine comments former president Trump has ever made. I don’t think they will be a game changer in terms of the election. When you are talking about what it takes for someone to stand up and protect this country, it is incomparable. It stands alone in its own lane in terms of the honor, especially when you are talking about the congressional medal of honor.”
Sununu also offered advice to the former president, saying that if he were to address the military again, he should focus on what it takes to “keep America strong.”
“What Trump needs to be focusing on if he ever brings up the military is what it takes to keep America strong across the world. How to bring world peace in dangerous places like the Ukraine and what’s going on in Israel. To make these types of comparisons is far out of field, I don’t think it’s going to be big politically in terms of moving votes, he’s said crazy things like this before,” he said.
Newsweek has reached out to Sununu’s office and Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
Trump’s recent comments have been widely criticized. VFW national commander Al Lipphardt slammed his remarks by saying it diminished the significance of the award.
“These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty,” Lipphardt said in a statement posted on the group’s website.
In addition, Veterans for Responsible Leadership (VFRL), a bipartisan super PAC, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Trump thinks the Medal of Honor is “secondary to the medal he gives his billionaire funders. He doesn’t care about our military or their sacrifices.”
Following the backlash, Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance, who served in the Marine Corps for four years as a combat correspondent, defended him.
“This is a guy who loves our veterans and who honors our veterans,” he said during an event at the Milwaukee Police Association on Friday. “I don’t think him complimenting and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those who received military honors.”
This is not the first time Trump has been at the forefront of controversy regarding the country’s Armed Forces.
Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who left the role in December 2018 after falling out with the former president and has since been a critic of him, has called attention to previous remarks Trump has said in which he belittled U.S. service members and veterans, an allegation that Trump has called “fake.”
“I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce…I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country,” the retired four-star general said in November 2023.
Meanwhile, Trump previously dismissed Kelly’s criticism as “lies” and “fake stories” a day after he went on the record with CNN to reiterate Trump’s alleged statements on the U.S. troops.