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Since July 2015, Donald Trump, the 45th U.S. President from 2017 to 2021, has made a series of controversial public statements, criticizing late U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona. Trump's comments regarding McCain have drawn backlash from numerous members of the Republican Party, including Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Mitch McConnell, Johnny Isakson, Martha McSally, and others.^[1]^[2] Trump's remarks on McCain have also drawn backlash from McCain's family, including Meghan McCain,^[3]^[4] as well as from Democratic figures such as Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and others.^[5]^[6]^[7]

History

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has made several controversial public statements since 2015 about late U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona. Trump has made comments regarding and questioning McCain's military service as a naval aviator in the United States Navy during Operation Rolling Thunder in the Vietnam War, in which McCain was shot down over Hanoi and remained a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973.^[8]

2015

On July 18, 2015, Trump appeared at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, just one month after he announced his campaign for president on June 16 of that same year. In a one-on-one interview with CBS pollster Frank Luntz, Trump was asked about the naval service of then–U.S. senator from Arizona John McCain, in which Trump responded:

Frank: (00:01)
John McCain, a war hero, five and a half years as a POW, and you call him a dummy. Is that appropriate in running for president?

Donald Trump: (00:11)

Okay. Let’s. You got to let me speak though Frank because you interrupt all the time, okay? No, I know him too well, that’s the problem. Let’s take John McCain. I’m in Phoenix. We have a meeting that is going to have 500 people at the Biltmore Hotel. We get a call from the hotel, it’s turmoil. Thousands and thousands of people showing up three, four days before, they’re pitching tents on the hotel grass. The hotel says, "We can’t handle this. It’s going to destroy the hotel." We move it to the convention center. We have 15,000 people, John, the biggest one ever bigger than Bernie Sanders, bigger than... 15,000 people showed up to hear me speak, bigger than anybody, and everybody knows it.

Donald Trump: (00:53)

A beautiful day with incredible people that were wonderful great Americans, I will tell you. John McCain goes up, "Oh boy, Trump makes my life difficult. He had 15,000 crazies show up." Crazies, he called them all crazy. I said, "They weren’t crazy. They were great Americans." These people, if you would have seen these people... I know what a crazy is. I know all about crazies, these weren't crazies. So he insulted me and he insulted everybody in that room. And I said, “Somebody should run against John McCain who has been, in my opinion, not so hot.” And I supported him, I supported him for president. I raised a million dollars for him. It's a lot of money. I supported him. He lost, he let us down. He lost. So I'd never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers. But Frank, Frank, let me get to it. He hit me.

Frank: (01:43)

He's a war hero.

Donald Trump: (01:44)

He's not a war hero.

Frank: (01:46)

He's a war hero.

Donald Trump: (01:46)

He's a war hero-

Frank: (01:46)

Five and a half years in a prison camp.

Donald Trump: (01:46)

He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you.

Frank: (01:52)

Do you agree with that?

Donald Trump: (01:52)

He's a war hero because he was captured, okay? And I believe perhaps he's a war hero, but right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people. So what I said is John McCain, I disagree with him that these people aren't crazy. And very importantly, and I speak the truth, he graduated last in his class at Annapolis. So I said, nobody knows that. I said he graduated last or second to last. He graduated last in his class at Annapolis and he was upset. I said, "Why? For telling the truth?" See, you're not supposed to say that somebody graduated last or second to last in their class. Because you're supposed to be like, Frank says, very nice. Folks, I want to make America great again. We want to get down to brass tacks. We don't want to listen to his stuff with being politically correct and everything else. We have a lot of work to do.

^[9]^[10]

I said he graduated last, or second to last, he graduated last in his class at Annapolis, and he was upset. I said, "Why? For telling the truth?"^[1]

Following the Leadership Summit incident, a 1999 interview between Trump and Dan Rather on 60 Minutes began to appear on Twitter, YouTube, and other social media. During the interview, Trump was asked about McCain's military service, in which Trump responded:

He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don't know. I'm not sure.^[11]

2016

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

The very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks!

October 11, 2016^[12]

Following Trump's controversial statements during the Leadership Summit incident in July 2015, McCain announced in April 2016 that he would not attend the Republican National Convention in July that same year after Trump received the Republican nomination for president.^[13] However, McCain stated that despite Trump's statements, he would still vote for Trump, citing, "because I'm a proud Republican and I support the Republican party."^[11]

However, following the release of the Access Hollywood tape on October 7, 2016, just one month before the election, McCain announced that he was withdrawing his vote and support for Trump, stating:

Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.^[11]

2018

On August 25, 2018, McCain died due to complications from Glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, which McCain had been battling on and off since his diagnosis in July 2017.^[14] Many close friends of McCain cited that he did not want then–president Trump attending his funeral, which was scheduled to be held in September 2018.^[15]

According to a September 2020 article in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, following McCain's death in August 2018, Trump, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the event, allegedly told his senior staff:

We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.^[16]

The article also goes on to suggest that Trump became furious when he saw flags lowered to half-staff in honor of McCain, telling his aides:

What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser.^[16]

2019

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

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!

March 16, 2019^[17]

On March 16, 2019, roughly seven months after McCain's death, Trump criticized McCain on Twitter for his "thumbs down" vote which prevented the 2017 repeal of the Affordable Care Act, while quoting Ken Starr.^[18] The next day, on March 17, Trump promoted a conspiracy theory on Twitter suggesting that McCain's decision to send the Steele dossier to the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a collusion with the Democratic Party to attack him personally.^[11]

On March 19, 2019, while meeting in the Oval Office with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and just two days after his controversial tweets regarding McCain were posted, Trump was questioned by reporters about his recent criticisms of McCain, despite his passing. Trump responded, stating:

I never was a fan of John McCain, and I never will be.^[19]

On March 20, 2019, Trump made a series of extremely controversial statements regarding McCain at a U.S. Army tank manufacturing facility, the Joint Systems Manufacturer, in Lima, Ohio. Trump proclaimed that the McCain family never thanked him for McCain's funeral, and further expressed his apathy towards the deceased senator, stating:

I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn't get [a] thank you. That's OK. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain.^[20]

2024

In the 2024 Republican presidential primary, former President Trump criticized Senator McCain's support of the Affordable Care Act declaring: "You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done. But John McCain, for some reason, couldn't get his arm up," Trump said, apparently mocking McCain's choice in 2017 to vote against a Republican-led bill to repeal Obamacare.^[21] Megan McCain, Senator McCain's daughter, responded on social media on the X platform: "My dad was an American hero. An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history," going on to call Trump an "election denying, huckster."^[21]