Donald Trump's Obsession With Medals Has Reportedly Fixed Its Gaze On The Nation's Top Prize

Donald Trump likes to receive honors and awards. Just look at how happy Trump was to get the first ever FIFA peace prize or when Venezuela's María Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal (to clarify, he may possess the medal, but he's not been awarded a Nobel). And he apparently wants to expand his collection by awarding himself the Medal of Honor. In a conversation about the war in Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has "mused [that] he should award himself the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor."

It's not exactly clear what he's done that would warrant receiving the Medal of Honor. According to the Department of Defense website, the honor "is conferred only upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty." While Trump is the Commander-in-Chief of America's armed forces, he has never served in the military. Trump was controversially diagnosed with bone spurs during the Vietnam War, which helped him avoid the draft.

People online had jokes about the situation. One person quipped on X: "I think it's fair. Trump's battle with bone spurs was one for the ages and he deserves to be recognized for his heroism." Another joked, "a knighthood will probably be next." And someone else said, "Because nothing is more honorable than honoring oneself and nominating oneself to be honored for honoring oneself."

Other people had harsher words about Donald Trump's apparent desire to award himself the Medal of Honor. "Donald Trump is a black hole of narcissistic need. He wants every award. It doesn't matter to him that he hasn't earned it," one tweeted. And another critic on X had a theory for why he'd do something like this: "naming things after himself, building arches in honor of himself, and awarding himself medals, all because he knows NOBODY would ever do that for him, which is how those honors are always bestowed!"

Trump thinking about potentially giving himself this honor isn't new, though it hasn't lost any of its cringeworthiness with time. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of Trump's State of the Union. During his speech (via YouTube), he seemed to acknowledge why he wouldn't get it: "I was informed I'm not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn't know why I'd be taking it. If they ever open up that law..." The week before, during a speech in Georgia, he said that he should get the Medal of Honor for going to Iraq to visit the troops in 2018. He said, "That's a little stretch if I gave myself one. ... Someday I'm going to try."

While Trump seems enamored with the Medal of Honor now, he hasn't always had kind words about it. At an event in 2024 (via ABC News), he said the Presidential Medal of Freedom was better than the Medal of Honor "because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers. They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets, or they're dead."