Though Obama didn’t mention Trump’s name, his language was a clear reference to the Republican nominee’s insistence that, like the Khans, he has made sacrifices in his life. Other elements of Obama’s speech functioned as a counterweight to Trump’s view of veterans’ treatment in this country and his positions on the military writ large. Where Trump has questioned the value of NATO and its current function, Obama promised the United States would honor the alliance. Where Trump has alleged, “We don’t win with military,” Obama argued, “We have the most capable fighting force in history.”

Trump’s stump speech features a refrain about how “badly” veterans are treated, and he has promised to make changes as president. Obama—whose second term was marred by a scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which led to Secretary Eric Shinseki’s 2014 resignation—said, “We’ve got a lot more work to do” to help American veterans. Steps like: improving health-care delivery, including mental-health care; fixing the backlog of veterans’ disability claims, after the Obama administration missed its 2015 target; and continuing to curb veterans’ homelessness.

But Obama suggested he has made “real progress,” too: beefing up the number of medical personnel who tend to veterans at V.A. facilities, cutting the number of homeless veterans by 47 percent, and improving access to job opportunities. “About 200,000 service members are becoming veterans every single year,” Obama said. The U.S. government “can’t let up” on making improvements. He called specifically for support of Gold Star families: “We have to do everything we can for those families, and honor them, and be humbled by them.”