President Trump tried to explain his recent attacks on the late Sen. John McCain Thursday but berated the dead senator in the process.
In an interview on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” set to air Friday, Trump was asked by host Maria Bartiromo why he keeps trashing McCain. Trump said it was because of the recent news that the senator shared the so-called Trump dossier, which contained unverified claims about Trump’s relationship with Russia, with the FBI.
“It came out that his main person gave to the FBI the fake news dossier. It was a fake, it was a fraud, it was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. They gave it to John McCain who gave it to the FBI for very evil purposes, that’s not good,” Trump said.
Trump also said he was still angry about McCain’s vote against repealing Obamacare saying he is “not a fan” of McCain.
“He was horrible what he did with repeal and replace. What he did to the Republican Party and to the nation, and to sick people that could have had great healthcare was not good,” said Trump. “So I’m not a fan of John McCain and that’s fine.”
When pushed about the fact that McCain is dead and can’t defend himself, Trump blamed the media for continuing to ask questions about McCain.
“No, I don’t talk about it. People ask me the question, I didn’t bring this up. You just brought it up, you asked the question,” he told Bartiromo.
The president’s savaging of the senator began Sunday when he sent out a thread of tweets trashing McCain over the dossier, calling the senator “last in his class” at the Naval Academy.
The attacks continued throughout the week, including during a visit to a tank factory in Ohio on Wednesday where Trump said he “never liked him much.”
McCain, a formal naval aviator who was held for five years as a prisoner of war, died of brain cancer in August of last year.
