Trump attacks late John McCain
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump yesterday flew to the bellwether electoral state of Ohio to claim credit for keeping a government tank plant open, but deviated from his economic message with his harshest, lengthiest attack yet on the late Senator John McCain, seven months after his death.
After several familiar complaints against McCain, including blaming him for wars in the Middle East, Trump expressed a new grievance: ‘‘I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,’’ he said, as the factory workers remained hushed.
‘‘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.’’
While Trump adlibbed his comments after days of antiMcCain statements and tweets, his attacks on the late senator — a 38year member of Congress, 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Navy veteran who endured five years of captivity and torture in Vietnam — date to early in Trump’s campaign, when he said McCain was no hero because he’d been captured.
The president started his attack by claiming ‘‘a lot of people are asking me’’ about McCain. He then spent five minutes, at a lectern with the presidential seal, grousing that McCain gave the FBI a dossier alleging Trump is compromised by the Russian Government, ‘‘hoping to put me in jeopardy,’’ that he’d betrayed the party by opposing a Bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and that he bore responsibility for the war in Iraq.
Trump opened his remarks by telling the cheering factory workers, ‘‘You better love me — I kept this place open.’’ Trump’s appearance was an effort to smooth over economic trouble signs in a politically crucial state where his trade war is hurting manufacturing.
As the president’s tariffs, and those that other nations have imposed in retaliation, have taken a toll on jobs and confidence, Trump has tried to compensate with an infusion of military spending.