Trump claims military COVID-19 vaccine mandate was a 'mistake'

Former President Donald Trump on Friday night claimed that a vaccine mandate due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced thousands of United States service members out of the military, should never have happened. 

The Defense Department in 2021 required that all service members get the vaccination, or face consequences that included being discharged from their respective military branch if they were not granted exemptions for medical, religious, or administrative reasons. The mandate resulted in over 8,000 service members being discharged.

Trump admitted that the mandate made the military lose some of its best people, and promised to get accountability for the mistakes that were made during the pandemic. 

"I want to have [those soldiers] come back into the military with pay," Trump said during a town hall in North Carolina. "They've been talking about that, but it never happened. They never did what they said they were going to do. There should have never been a mandate. That should have never happened. You should have been given choices. We say we want choice in education, and we want a choice there too, and that should have never happened."

Trump's comment was in response to a former Green Beret who was discharged from the military because he refused the vaccine.

"There'll be accountability ...we'll fire their asses. But we don't want to lose this guy," Trump said of the veteran. "We're going to take care of it. I hope you do come back, or I hope you do very well, to be honest, wherever you are, I just want you to do well. But we're going to get a lot of people coming back. They should have never had the mandate. The mandate was a big mistake, and they treated people terribly." 

A Vietnam veteran who gave Trump his Purple Heart after the assassination attempt on the former president in July was also present at the town hall. The appearance comes the day before Trump returns to the campaign site in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

"I couldn't think of anybody more deserving of a Purple Heart," the Vietnam veteran said. "You laid down there, you got back up, and the first words out of your mouth were, 'fight, fight, fight.' You didn't even have anything to shoot back at."

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.