For a candidate who has repeatedly vowed to be the best advocate for veterans, Donald Trump sure has a way of talking about them. On Monday, the Republican nominee stepped in it again for characterizing military veterans who don’t need mental help as “strong,” suggesting that those who do need help simply “can’t handle” the stress of combat.

Trump made the offending remark while speaking off-the-cuff Monday at the Retired American Warriors town hall, responding to a question about his plans to address veteran suicide, post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries, and other mental- and physical-health issues facing Americans who serve in the military. “When you talk about the mental-health problems, when people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it,” Trump said.

The comment, which was widely circulated on social media, was quickly condemned for contributing to a stereotype of mental-health issues as being a reflection of strength or weakness, rather than a serious medical or psychological problem. And while the presidential hopeful went on to add that mental health is “one of the things that’s least addressed,” and that “we are losing so many great people who could be taken care of if they had proper care”—all of which is true—the error was already made. Many military veterans’ reluctance to seek medical care for mental-health problems is rooted in the stigma that to do so would be a sign of weakness.

Trump’s insensitive meditation on PTSD stands in stark contrast to comments made by President Barack Obama last week, who was asked a similar question while addressing military veterans and family members of servicemen and women. “If you break your leg, you’re going to go to a doctor to get that leg healed. If, as a consequence of the extraordinary stress and pain that you are witnessing, typically, in a battlefield, something inside you feels like it was wounded, it’s just like a physical injury,” Obama said, responding to a woman who lost her husband to suicide after he refused to get treatment for his PTSD because he feared being labeled unstable or weak. “You’ve got to go get help, and there’s nothing weak about that. That’s strong.”

This is not the first time that Trump has faced criticism for disrespectful comments about the military. At NBC’s Commander-in-Chief forum, the real estate mogul impolitely rebutted a former servicewoman who asked him how he planned to prevent 20 veterans a day from killing themselves, trying to correct her by offering a competing (but incorrect) statistic. In August, when gifted a Purple Heart by a supporter and veteran, Trump—who received four draft deferrals from the Vietnam War—joked, “I always wanted a Purple Heart. This was much easier.” The presidential candidate was also widely condemned for insulting John McCain’s war service when he argued that the senator “was not a war hero” (“I like people who weren’t captured,” he said). In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, Trump also compared Vietnam to his avoiding contracting sexually-transmitted diseases while he was dating. “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier,” he told the radio show host.

Later Monday afternoon, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn condemned the media’s coverage of the Republican nominee’s comments. “The media continues to operate as the propaganda arm of Hillary Clinton as they took Mr. Trump’s words out of context in order to deceive voters and veterans—an appalling act that shows they are willing to go to any length top carry water for their candidate of choice,” the Trump surrogate wrote in a statement, according to Politico. “Mr. Trump was highlighting the challenges veterans face when returning home after serving their country. He has always respected the service and sacrifice of our military men and women—proposing reforms to Veteran Affairs to adequately address the various issues veterans face when they return home.”