On top of all his other campaign woes, Donald Trump is fielding a bunch of additional criticism this afternoon for suggesting veterans who experience post-traumatic stress are weaker than those who don’t.

“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 during a Q&A with veterans.

Because Trump has intentionally insulted veterans before (John McCain and other prisoners of war, for instance) critics are interpreting this as a mean-spirited shot at veterans with mental illness. I think it’s probably more generous to interpret it as a ham-fisted attempt at expressing empathy.

But that doesn’t make the story much better for Trump, because if he’s elected president, he’ll assume responsibility for the military’s approach to this problem, and that will require an understanding of how mental health issues are stigmatized in the military, and what the consequences of that stigma can be.

As it happens, at a CNN military town hall last week, President Obama addressed the issue with appropriate seriousness, in response to a question from a military wife and mother whose husband had committed suicide.