'Shame on you': Marine vet J.D. Vance buried for defending Trump's smear of war heroes

On Saturday morning former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele jumped all over GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance (R-OH) for his tepid response to Donald Trump's latest attack on U.S. military service members.

During a speech on Thursday, the former president downplayed the value of the Congressional Medal of Honor given to war heroes by stating the Presidential Medal of Freedom carries more value.

Responding to questions about Trump stating, "It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version — it's actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers, they are even in very bad shape because they have been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead," all Vance could offer up was, "I don't think him complementing and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those received military honors."

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He then added, "They are two different awards. And think, the president was saying some nice things about a person he liked and that is a totally reasonable thing to do."

From his perch as a host of MSNBC's "The Weekend," a fuming Steele lectured, "This whole episode just sucks hard. You know, it strikes at the core of what we value as a country. Think about the men and women who, I mean, we don't have a conscripted army. No one is being forced into military service yet these men and women, for reasons only they know, it is a vocation, it is a calling to going to service knowing that you could face harm."

"To have a then president, now former president, denigrate that, but more importantly, to have his running mate, who himself is a member of that service, who wore that uniform, who stood next to those men and women who served with him, many of whom he knows and knew would go off and be harmed or killed, to stand there and to give credence and justification to that excuse-making on behalf of Donald Trump," he continued.

"Shame on you J.D.!" he exclaimed. "Shame on you. You dishonor the uniform that you wore and that, to me, when you listen to a Gold Star family member, who you can still hear the difficulty of having to consume that crap from Vance and Trump, we are shocked by it because that is just not who we are as a nation."

"We have never, in the 230 years of this country's history, done that until the last seven years or so," he added.

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