Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson analyzed Saturday why there is a “never-ending pattern” of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump showing “utter contempt” for the U.S. military.
The former president recently came under fire from several quarters, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, after declaring that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, was “far superior” to the Medal of Honor, the nation’s top military decoration.
Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee, appeared on MSNBC to address Trump’s attacks on the parents of the late Sen. John McCain and the late U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan.
He later added: “There’s this endless pattern of Trump’s horrific anger and hatred towards them because he thinks they want to go into the military because of their socioeconomic status. He thinks it’s like a welfare program that they should be ashamed of.”
Wilson described Trump’s relationship with the military as one where “he thinks his swagger makes him a leader,” adding that he joked in 2016 that he would like to receive a Purple Heart.
“Well, it’s pretty easy, Donald. If you hadn’t evaded the draft in Vietnam, you could have gotten the Purple Heart. Fifty-eight thousand Americans died in Vietnam,” Wilson said.
“Donald Trump later bragged about spending time chasing women in New York during the Vietnam War. He is beyond contemptible.”
