Analysis | Trump's continued callousness toward injured soldiers

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

69% : In mid-August, Trump called the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to civilians, "much better" than the Presidential Medal of Honor.
67% : Trump said even "Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD."
51% : The reported comments are hardly the only examples of Trump saying off-color things on the subject, but they are the most pronounced.
50% : Still, even as that particular dispute has simmered, Trump keeps breathing life into the same narrative.
48% : And just as it has been on several occasions before, that seems to be a price Trump is willing to pay.
46% : It was evident at the time that Trump had a political and strategic interest in downplaying the toll of Iran's strike.
42% : The soldiers and others involved in the effort said it was at times thwarted for fear of escalation with Iran and undercutting Trump.
42% : Trump to this day has an interest in downplaying Iran's strike -- politically, at least.
29% : As the numbers diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries gradually grew, he shifted to insisting that the injuries were "not very serious." "I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things," Trump said on Jan. 22.
29% : Despite Iran's clearly striking an American asset and injuring U.S. soldiers, Trump did not retaliate.
26% : It's not the first time Trump has downplayed these injuries; he said much the same thing shortly after Iran's strike.
25% : Trump downplaying the traumatic brain injuries suffered by more than 100 U.S. soldiers in a 2020 Iranian missile attack as mere "headaches," when they were clearly much more than that.
17% : Trump calls the injuries to American soldiers caused by a 2020 Iranian missile strike "headaches."
17% : Trump initially claimed on Jan. 8, 2020, that there were "no Americans harmed," a claim that soon proved false.
13% : Donald Trump's campaign has made great pains to combat the narrative that Trump repeatedly denigrated dead and injured soldiers.
12% : Donald Trump himself keeps saying and doing callous things regarding dead and injured soldiers that make that much more difficult. Democrats in the 2024 race have focused extensively on reported comments -- confirmed last year by Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly -- in which Trump referred to dead soldiers as "suckers" and questioned why people would join the military.
10% : The event Trump was talking about was Iran's strike on Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq -- an attack that followed the Trump-ordered killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.

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