US Politics
Trump toys with awarding himself the Congressional Medal of Honor over Middle East visit: “I was so brave’
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President Donald Trump told an audience at a steel plant that he toyed with the idea of giving himself the Congressional Medal of Honor back in 2018.
While speaking to a large crowd in Rome, Georgia, on Thursday, the President went on one of his infamous “weaves” about how he was told it would take four years to defeat ISIS during his first term.
“I flew to Iraq. I was extremely brave. So brave I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“I said, I said to my people, am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?… Some day I’m gonna try. I’m gonna test the law,” said the president.
The Congressional Medal of Honor is the highest military award in the U.S. for valor. It is for military service members who have risked their lives “above and beyond the call of duty,” per the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
President Trump has never served in the U.S. military, nor did he see fighting during his three and a half hour trip to the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in 2018.
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Previous recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor include 1st Lt. Thacker, who placed himself in enemy fire in Vietnam in order to save his unit, and Staff Sergeant Earl D. Plumlee, who raced towards insurgents in suicide vests to protect other service members in Afghanistan.
Some civilians can qualify for the Citizen Honor Award, which rewards “a singular act of extraordinary heroism or through a prolonged series of selfless acts,” by any U.S. citizen.
The president’s hour-long speech at the Georgia plant was largely about manufacturing and the economy as part of his push in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District to find a replacement for former MAGA figure Marjorie Taylor-Greene, but veered into foreign policy.
Trump told the crowd that his administration “inherited a mess with high prices and high inflation.”
He said, “We’ve turned it around, and we’ve made it great, and they don’t mention, like I’ve said before, they don’t mention the word ‘affordability,’ they don’t mention – I haven’t heard the word in two weeks, because they can’t get away with the gig. It’s all a con job with them.”
Only 28 percent of Americans currently have a positive view of the economy, according to a Pew Research Poll.
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The FIFA Peace Prize winner has spent much of his second term modelling himself as a harbinger of peace, discussing his desire to be a peacemaker in his inaugural address, and pushing for himself to receive the Nobel Peace Prize whilst issuing threats of invasion against Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
Trump is also currently threatening Iran with “bad things” if the government does not agree to a peace deal within the next ten days.
The president has been largely credited with securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. However, the terms of the agreement are also considered tenuous by some, given that the U.S. has added leaders from autocratic states to its ‘Board of Peace,’ and the president has not secured enough money to fully rebuild Gaza.
Trump said in Georgia that it would be “a stretch” if he gave himself a medal, given that the recipients he has met are missing limbs, before telling the audience, “you know I’m having fun,” and saying that he believed the “fake news” would take his statement out of context.