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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