Cindy McCain said Republicans have failed to carry on her husband’s legacy of bipartisanship since his death a year ago.
“I don’t see anybody carrying that mantle at all, I don’t see anyone carrying the voice — the voice of reason,” McCain told ABC News. “That was a tough torch to carry, and as John said, there were many lonely days because he always said what was on his mind.”
The late senator died Aug. 25, 2018, at 81, from an aggressive form of brain cancer. He spent his final years pushing back against some of President Trump’s statements and positions.
The president has continued taking swipes at the former prisoner of war after his death, sometimes putting South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the McCain family who has become a staunch Trump ally, in an awkward position.
“Lindsey has his own political career to worry about and his own political life,” Cindy McCain, 65, said. “I would just hope that in the long run, everyone would begin to move in the right direction, including Lindsey or anybody else.”
“Lindsey’s a part of my family,” she said. “He’s a good friend and I cannot, [and] will not, be critical of Lindsey.”
To honor the late senator, the McCain family is launching a new initiative called “Acts of Civility” that aims to overcome divisiveness in politics.
The Washington Examiner reported in April that the McCain family intended to endorse Joe Biden’s presidential bid. A former McCain campaign official with close ties to the family said at the time that support for Biden was a given, but a key consideration was whether endorsing him in the Democratic primary might harm him. “It’s undeniable that Joe Biden and the McCain family have a very close, personal relationship. It’s about what’s good for him [Biden].”
In June, Cindy and John McCain’s daughter Meghan, 34, a host of ABC’s The View, said in June: “I love Biden in a way that I loved my father.”
