Former GOP strategist Rick Wilson broke down why there’s an “endless pattern” that shows Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “utter contempt” of the U.S. military on Saturday.
The former president has faced criticism — including from the Veterans of Foreign Wars — in recent days after he declared that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, was “much better” than the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration.
Wilson — co-founder of The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee — appeared on MSNBC where he referred to Trump attacking late Sen. John McCain and the parents of late U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan.
He later added, “There is an endless pattern of Trump’s hideous degree of just spleen and hatred for them, because he thinks they are desperate to be in the military because of their socioeconomic circumstances. He thinks it’s like a welfare program that they should be ashamed of.”
Wilson described Trump’s relationship to the military as one “where he thinks that his bluster makes him a leader,” noting that he once joked about wanting to receive the Purple Heart back in 2016.
“Well, it’s pretty easy, Donald. You could’ve gotten the Purple Heart if you hadn’t been a draft dodger during the Vietnam War where 58,000 American men sacrificed their lives,” Wilson said.
“Donald Trump spent his time during the Vietnam War, as he bragged about later, chasing women around New York. This is a guy who is beyond contemptuous.”