Former President Donald Trump’s Memorial Day message ruffled feathers when he compared his own plight to soldiers “who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”
Posting on his Truth Social network in an all-caps screed, Trump lauded those in the “equally dangerous fire” of “stopping the threats of the terrorists, misfits and lunatic thugs who are working feverishly from within to overturn and destroy our once great nation.”
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The message quickly drew criticism on social media for the comparison of his political situation with the tragedies of service members who have died.
Trump has a history of making controversial comments about veterans who have, throughout his political career, landed him in hot water.
He drew fire from fellow Republicans in 2015 when he disparaged the late Sen. John McCain’s military record by quipping that he prefers “people who weren’t captured.”
McCain had spent years as a prisoner of war enduring torture in a North Vietnamese prison.
Trump faced condemnation after a leak in 2020 of private remarks he made in 2018 in which he referred to soldiers who died in World War I as “suckers” and “losers.”
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This is the most inappropriate #MemorialDay comment that a @POTUS has ever made. Self-promotion on a day to remember the fallen, and wishing those remembering their deceased loved ones a “happy” holiday is appalling. #CadetBoneSpurs pic.twitter.com/kRse4dnwiu
— VoteVets (@votevets) May 28, 2018
In 2018, Trump took heat from at least one veterans group, VoteVets, for his “inappropriate” decision to use Memorial Day as a platform for self-promotion in a statement he released on the holiday that year.
Trump avoided military service of his own by obtaining a medical exemption from the draft in 1968 for having bone spurs.