- Meghan McCain slammed Trump over comments and a gesture he made about the late Sen. John McCain.
- While in Iowa last week, Trump pointed to John McCain for the demise of a 2017 Obamacare repeal bill.
- John McCain sustained physical ailments from his over 5 years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam.
Meghan McCain tore into former President Donald Trump on Saturday after the ex-president mocked her father, John McCain, by mimicking the late Arizona senator’s thumbs-down vote that scuttled the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare.
On the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol, Meghan McCain responded to Trump after the former president seemingly made light of the late senator’s arm injuries that came from his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from 1967 to 1973. Because of injuries that McCain suffered while in captivity, he was unable to move his arms above his head.
“My dad was an American hero. An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history,” she wrote on X. “I cannot buy a bagel without someone approaching me about how much they loved and miss him.”
“Trump is a piece of shit, election denying, huckster whose own wife won’t campaign with him,” she added, alluding to former first lady Melania Trump’s absence from the campaign trail.
My dad was an American hero. An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history. I cannot buy a bagel without someone approaching me about how much they loved and miss him.
Trump is a piece of shit, election denying, huckster whose own wife won’t campaign with him. https://t.co/f3RlWLqT9B
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 7, 2024
During a recent campaign appearance in Iowa, Trump recounted the now-failed July 2017 skinny repeal bill that GOP senators were unable to push through the Senate at the insistence of the then-president.
And he pointed to McCain as the reason for the bill’s demise.
“Obamacare is a catastrophe, nobody talks about it. You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done,” the former president said. “But John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day, remember?”
Trump then made a movement to mirror the thumbs-down “no” vote that McCain made on the Senate floor in 2017.
The 49-51 vote, which saw McCain and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska join every Senate Democrat to beat back the repeal effort, was a massive defeat for congressional Republicans, who had railed against the Affordable Care Act since it was first introduced in 2009. The bill, which years ago was politically divisive but has since become popular with voters, was signed into law in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama.
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, served in the US Senate from 1987 until his death in August 2018.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who in 2020 won the special election for the seat formerly held by McCain, blasted Trump on X over his remarks regarding the late senator.
“Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about what it means to put others before yourself and sacrifice for your country,” Kelly wrote on Sunday. “That was how John McCain lived his life, and in Arizona we’re proud of that.”
Business Insider reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
