Trump complains about John McCain funeral
Washington: US President Donald Trump has attacked the late Senator John McCain, complaining that he “didn’t get a thank you” for his state funeral.
“We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain,” the President said during a visit to an Ohio tank factory, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Trump has repeatedly assailed the late Arizona senator in recent days, reigniting a feud that dates back to before his presidency.
The Vietnam War veteran died of brain cancer last August at the age of 81.
During his visit on Wednesday to the tank factory in Lima, Ohio, the president renewed his assault on McCain.
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” he told workers at the factory.
“I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK.”
Trump approved the military flight of McCain’s remains from Arizona to Washington, but it was Congress that accorded the late senator the honour of lying in state.
The US president said McCain “didn’t get the job done for our great vets and the VA” by refusing to repeal Obamacare and attacked him for “a war in the Middle East”, in reference to the senator’s support for the Iraq War.
“Not my kind of guy,” the president said. “But some people like him and I think that’s great.”
The president revived his spat with McCain on Saturday by tweeting that the late senator had backed the so-called Steele dossier, an unverified 2016 document by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, claiming ties between Trump and the Kremlin.
On Sunday, Trump went after McCain again, saying the “last in his class” senator had sent “the Fake Dossier to the FBI”.
Asked by a reporter about his attacks while hosting the Brazilian president at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said: “I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.”
Trump has regularly clashed with McCain going back to his presidential campaign.
