WATCH: In Milwaukee, Vance addresses crime and criticism of Trump's comments on the Congressional Medal of Honor

Speaking to the Milwaukee Police Association on Friday, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, was asked about criticism that former President Donald Trump has received for characterizing the Presidential Medal of Freedom as “better” than the military's top honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Watch in our player above.

Vance, who served in the US Marine Corps, said that “the veteran community is very much behind Donald Trump.”

During an event at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday, Trump said the Medal of Freedom “much better” than the top military honor because the servicemen and women who received it have “been hit so many times by bullets or they're dead. ”

Watch the Thursday event below.

Trump was talking about the award after an introduction from GOP mega donor Miriam Adelson, to whom he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.

READ MORE: Fact-checking attacks on Walz's military record by Vance and other Republicans

Trump went on to call Adelson “a healthy, beautiful woman, and she're rated equal.”

“I don't think him complimenting and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those who received military honors,” Vance said Friday.