Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a Countdown Bulletin podcast. I'm Keith Olberman. And at any other point in our nation's history, of presidential candidate who said what Donald Trump has now said about winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor would not only have had his nomination rescinded by his party, but its leaders would have expelled him and probably chased him out of the country, or at least chased him into hiding, as his campaign has accused its opponent's running mate of quote
stolen valor Trump at his Ramshackle golf course last night in Bedminster, New Jersey, quote honoring Miriam Addelson, a wealthy widow trying to help him buy the election, and the government saying that the Presidential Medal of Freedom that he gave her was quote better than the Congressional Medal of Honor because the recipients of the ladder are usually deceased or injured.
I have to say, Miriam, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the highest award you can get as a civilian 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 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 a healthy, beautiful woman, So.
They're read an equal even for an unstable narcissist with no concept of right or wrong. That is a statement that goes beyond any imaginable bounds of suitability for office or to be thought of as having had any respect
for American veterans. There are adamant leftist anti war protesters in this country who have devoted their laws to trying to stop war or to desanctify its soldiers, who would be shunned by their peers if they made such a horrific degradation of wounded, brave, self sacrificing Americans, no matter who put them there or what they were fighting for. Donald Trump last night might as well have urinated on the graves of our greatest heroes and on their wounds.
The Adelson remarks soiling the Congressional Medal of Honor and its recipients. Is hardly Trump's first denigration of veterans and even the war dead. During a twenty fifteen appearance in Iowa, Trump criticized Senator John McCain at his service in Vietnam. He called out McCain's time as a prisoner of war. He's not a war hero, Trump said, he was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who
weren't captured, unquote. One year later, Trump attacked a gold Star family, the parents of a deceased serviceman, Kazir and Gahala Khan, Pakistani Americans whose son died in the Iraq War in two thousand and four. They called Trump out for his public attacks on Muslims and implied that Trump had never read the Constitution. Mister Khan, you will recall waves a small copy of the Constitution, he said he
carried with them at all times. At the Democratic National Convention, Kazir Khan made the entire speech, and Trump insisted that he did so because his wife was not allowed to speak, drawing on the implication that Muslim women are subservient to their spouses, In fact, she was too emotional to say anything. He added that the Khan's son quote would be alive today quote if he had been president. He also suggested the US never would have entered a war with Iraq
if he'd been president. Then, while in office, Trump infamously demanded that wounded veterans not be included in a military parade being held realistically in his honor. On the fourth of July, he told his Chief of Staff, General John Kelly. Per reports later traced to Kelly quote, Look, I don't want any wounded guys in the parade. Trump reportedly requested, this doesn't look good for me. Just last year, Kelly wrote a statement to CNN. What can I add? He
wrote that has not already been said. A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because it doesn't look good for me. A person who demonstrated open contempt for a gold Star family for all gold Star families on TV during the twenty sixteen campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America's defense are quote losers and wouldn't visit their graves in France un quote from John Kelly. That was a reference to an event in twenty eighteen
at the American Military Cemetery in France. Trump there reportedly referred to American soldiers who had died in World War One as quote losers and quote suckers. Senior defense officials reported at the time that Trump made the comments before a canceled visit to the American Military Cemetery outside Paris, and stated that he didn't want to visit that cemetery
because it was quote filled with losers un quote. Trump on the same trip later called one thousand, eight hundred US Marines suckers were being killed during the Battle of bellow Wood, one of the iconic events in American military history in nineteen eighteen, often overlooked. In twenty twenty, Trump downplayed the severity of the injuries of some troops after
a missile attack on their base in Iraq. In January twenty twenty, Eleven American soldiers were impacted when the Ayen al Assad air base in Iraq was targeted in a missile attack by Iran. Eight sought treatment for concussions, three for psychological sequala. Trump told the media there had been no American injuries. At a news conference, he said, quote I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things. I've seen people with no legs and no arms.
I consider them to be really bad injuries. This latest blasphemy comes in the middle of a concerted attempt by his campaign to ride the limited military service of his vice presidential pick, Senator Vance of Ohio as some kind of indicator of patriotism and bravery, and the attempt to swift vote his Democratic vice presidential nominee opposite Tim Walls, because there are nuanced details at the end of Walls's twenty four year career in the military, a career which
Walls resumed coming out of retirement after nine to eleven. A Trump Vance surrogate called Walls a quote coward just yesterday in Pennsylvania. And there is Trump's own original sin in this area. He somehow obtained five deferments from service in Vietnam in the nineteen sixties using quote bone spurs. Bone spurs that mysteriously ended at the same time Trump's
eligibility for the military draft ended. Here again is what Trump said about the Congressional Medal of Honor last night in New Jersey.
I have to say, Miriam, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the highest award you can get as a civilian. 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 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 a healthy, beautiful woman.
It's fair, and they're read. An Equal Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.