President Donald Trump made it clear that his lack of military service was his pain.
“I've always felt intimate because I didn't serve like many others,” he said in 2015. In 2019, he listed his desire to “make up for this.”
Did he make up for this? Compare his sacrifice with the sacrifice of actual service members.
Trump’s comments on “Mark Levine Show” on Tuesday are probably his most astonishing. Because of his decision to use military power, he explicitly called himself a “war hero.”
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is] War heroes are because we work together. He is a war hero,” Trump told Levine, adding: “I think so do I. ”
“No one cares, but so do I,” Trump continued. “I mean, I sent those planes,” he added, referring to the strike on the Iranian nuclear site earlier this summer.
These comments will lead to political scandals in any era that last for days or weeks that have not yet been filled with Trump’s controversy. No matter what difficult choice the president has to be in chief, they will not be compared with the troops for harming their lives.
His remarks recalled his attacks on the time in 2015. John McCain isn't for being captured rather than a “war hero”, the latest in a series of rash Trump comments that compare themselves to service members.
Sometimes, they are provided in a joke way. Few explicitly equate Trump with the troops. But their overall show that the President is very fond of people regarding his suffering as comparable to that of the troops.
Trump told 2015 biographer Michael D'Antonio that his attendance at a military-themed boarding school meant he “always feel like I'm in the military.”
“I feel like I'm really because I'm dealing with those people,” Trump said, adding that he “trains more military training than many people who are in the military.”
Trump told ABC News in 2016 when his father in the killing army proposed not comparing Trump's sacrifices compared to his family, “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I'm working very, very hard.”
He doubled when it was true that hard work was sacrificed so much.
“I think there are a lot of things to take care of when I can hire thousands of people to take care of their education,” Trump said. “Even in the military, I mean, I'm in charge of the Vietnam Memorial built in downtown Manhattan with a bunch of people, and people thank me until today.”
Donald Trump Jr. filed a similar case in 2019. He recalled driving through Arlington National Cemetery, seeing many white tombstones, and reminded him of the “sacrifices” of his family in the face of political attacks and giving up millions of doing business.
By 2019, Elder Trump quipped, for wanting to receive a medal of honor, and even asked himself before being dissuaded.
In an interview with Piers Morgan that year, he added that he was underserved, “I think I made up for that now” by pushing for increased military funding.
In 2020, he said in a discussion of McCain: “I will be better than anyone else.”
Trump’s Memorial Day 2023 message about the truth has a similar attitude.
After a happy holiday to those who made the “final sacrifice”, he extended the same wish to others facing “a very different but equally dangerous fire.”
He said that included those who cracked down on discomfort and mad thugs who “worked violently from within to overthrow and destroy our once great country.”
You have to read a little between the two lines, but Trump actually says that the political battle he and his movement face is “just as dangerous” to the threats facing fallen troops.
Trump has resumed this theme since the 2024 campaign.
In October, Trump brought his portrait of his attempts from Pennsylvania, filled with bloody ears and fists, compared to the memorial in Iwo Jima.
“You shouldn't live for iconic,” Trump said. “But they said it's the most important thing… I think Jima is there. They spent a lot of bullets to lift the flag.”
Just two weeks ago, when he marked the National Purple Heart Day at the White House, he thanked the service members for sending him Purple Heart Heart, adding: “I think when you think of it, it’s not that easy for me.”
“But you've experienced more things than I do, and I'm very grateful for it,” Trump added.
Trump has a more reliable comparison in the last two charges. He was literally caught on fire and was injured in his butler, Pennsylvania.
But he repeatedly compared with the service members, which was good. Trump's new “Heroes of War” commentary mentions a completely different reason.
His allies will see jokes or harmless provocations, or may be somewhat overcompensated. Indeed, Trump seldom equates himself to the troops like Tuesday, and he sometimes notices that he is just comparing rather than equivalent.
However, it should not benefit from the sacredness of military service, as it has the potential to reduce sacrifice.
Trump has been working hard.