'Ultimate' honor: Trump clarifies Medal of Honor comments

Former President Donald Trump clarified his controversial remarks about the Medal of Honor, referring to the military award as "the ultimate" honor the nation bestows.

Veterans groups and Democratic leaders criticized Trump, now the GOP presidential nominee, after he compared the Medal of Honor last week to the Medal of Freedom, calling the latter "better" than the former, Air Force Times reported.

"It's the equivalent of the congressional Medal of Honor," Trump earlier said of the Medal of Freedom. "But the civilian version, it's actually much better because everyone that 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."

Trump said this past weekend that his "better" comment was misinterpreted.

"When I say better, I would rather, in a certain way, get it, because people, they get the congressional Medal of Honor, which I’ve given to many, are often horribly wounded or dead," he said.

"And when you get the [military] medal, I always consider that to be the ultimate, but it is a painful thing to get it. When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it's usually for other things, like you’ve achieved great success in sports, or you’ve achieved great success someplace else," Trump also said.