President Trump belittled and mocked the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), an American war hero, in a pair of tweets this weekend, reigniting criticism of the widely respected lawmaker seven months after his death.
In a tweet Saturday afternoon, Trump quoted former independent counsel Ken Starr, who criticized the Arizona Republican on a recent Fox News show.
In the segment, Starr referred to reports that a McCain ally had shared parts of the Steele dossier with the media.
The dossier, assembled by British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, allegedly included information that linked Trump to the Russian government.
Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier “is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain.” Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse “stains” than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
In fact, McCain provided a copy of the dossier to the F.B.I. after Election Day.
But supporters of Trump have seized on the dossier’s uncorroborated accusations and political roots in the campaign as a way to try to discredit the special counsel’s Russia inquiry.
The comments exemplified Trump’s model for presidential communication, both in form and tone, exploiting the power and urgency of social media, often with harsh and bitterly personal attacks.
But they also sparked swift condemnation, showing that the president abandons conventional boundaries of civility like not speaking ill of the dead at his peril.
Trump piled on in his Saturday night tweet, criticizing McCain — as he has repeatedly done on the campaign trail and in interviews — for his vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017.
So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
Trump was referring to the Republicans’ last effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
When the Republican-led Senate took it up in 2017, McCain famously voted against it, which put the GOP one vote shy of passage.
McCain had already learned that he had terminal cancer by that time.
His vote to save the ACA was viewed as a defining moment in his career as a lawmaker.
It also earned him the ire of Trump, which hasn’t waned even since McCain’s death in August. Trump brought up McCain’s thumbs-down vote often during campaign rallies throughout the late senator’s illness, eliciting boos from Trump supporters.
Trump had suggested while campaigning in 2015 that McCain was not a war hero because he was captured while serving in Vietnam.
While McCain was serving his nation in uniform, Trump was a playboy in Manhattan, having avoided military service due to “bone spurs” in his toes.
The president stoked controversy even in the days after McCain’s death when he waited to lower flags to half-staff and offer an official statement.
McCain’s family and closest friends, most representing the president’s own party, came to his defense in the wake of Trump’s renewed attacks.
“No one will ever love you the way they loved my father….” McCain’s daughter, Meghan, tweeted Saturday.
“I wish I had been given more Saturday’s with him,” she added. “Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate and now one of the president’s most reliable allies in Congress, defended his former colleague in a pair of tweets on Sunday.
“He stepped forward to risk his life for his country, served honorably under difficult circumstances, and was one of the most consequential senators in the history of the body,” Graham said. “Nothing about his service will ever be changed or diminished.”
Other than Graham, it was mostly Democratic lawmakers who admonished Trump’s comments on Sunday morning.
“I’ve long thought that his personal and direct attacks on Sen. McCain was one of the most detestable things about President Trump’s conduct as a candidate,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said on ABC’s “This Week,” calling on Trump to apologize for his most recent remarks.
McCain, for his part, served as one of the president’s most consistent foils within the GOP.
Prior to Trump taking office and after his own brain cancer diagnosis, McCain offered some of the sharpest criticisms of any lawmaker of the president’s rhetoric.
He spoke out against “half-baked, spurious nationalism” and Trump’s reported disparaging remarks about immigrants from Africa.
Trump’s attacks on McCain come as the president’s language about immigrants, Muslims and minority groups is under fresh scrutiny following a shooting at two mosques in New Zealand that left 50 people dead.
Trump has mourned the attack, and said Friday that he believes white nationalism is not a growing threat, but a “small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
“Now do white nationalists,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) suggested in response to Trump’s tweet blasting McCain.