Trump bemoans not being able to give himself the Medal of Honor

President Donald Trump bemoaned not being able to give himself the Medal of Honor in front of recipients of the highest award for military valor in action.

“I want for myself a Congressional Medal of Honor, and I've studied it and I would give it to myself. I have no problem. But I'm not allowed to,” Trump said at the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, Thursday.

“Can you believe it? The one thing I'm not allowed to do — I would give it to myself,” he continued.

Trump then complained that what he called the “fake news” would run with the story about him wanting the Medal of Honor, adding, “I’m only kidding.”

But then he admitted: “Actually, I’m not kidding,” followed by laughter from the crowd.

Trump never served in the Armed Forces and has been accused of being a draft dodger for his timely diagnosis of bone spurs that gave him a medical exemption from serving in the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.

In late 2018, the daughters of a podiatrist in Queens where Trump grew up told The New York Times that their father, Dr. Larry Braunstein, who died in 2007, said the diagnosis was a favor to Trump’s father, Fred Trump, who was the owner of the office Braunstein rented.

“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” one of Braunstein’s daughters, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, said. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”

Presidents are usually the ones to give out awards, such as the Medal of Honor, but Trump has repeatedly complained about not being able to receive them.

Throughout his second term, Trump has exaggerated his help in resolving world conflicts and aired his grievances about not being offered the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

“I ended eight wars. Did I get the Nobel Prize? No,” Trump said from the Oval Office last Friday. “Although the person that got it was nice enough that she gave it to me. She said, nobody in the history of the Nobel Prize deserves it more than you. But in Norway, they don't like me because I think they think I'm a little conservative."

Trump was referring to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner who presented her medal to Trump in January after he captured Venezuela’s then-President Nicolás Maduro.

While at the National Medal of Honor Museum Thursday, Trump signed a law authorizing a monument to honor award recipients to be established on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The monument is named after Hershel “Woody” Williams, who was the last surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient when he died in 2022.