As I've said before, Donald Trump is driven by petty vindictiveness more than anything else. Any slight, real or perceived, must be punished, even if the transgressor has passed from this life.
President Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised the heroism and life of Sen. John McCain, telling senior aides he preferred to issue a tweet before posting one Saturday night that did not include any kind words for the late Arizona Republican.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and other White House aides advocated for an official statement that gave the decorated Vietnam War POW plaudits for his military and Senate service and called him a “hero,” according to current and former White House aides, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. The original statement was drafted beforeMcCain died Saturday, and Sanders and others edited a final version this weekend that was ready for the president, the aides said.
But Trump told aides he wanted to post a brief tweet instead, and the statement praising McCain’s life was not released.
“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!” Trump posted Saturday evening shortly after McCain’s death was announced.
Sanders declined to comment Sunday afternoon.
“It’s atrocious,” Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump’s legal team and a longtime Republican strategist, said of Trump’s reaction to McCain’s death. “At a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero.”
Trump never thought McCain was a hero. He thought McCain was a gigantic loser.
This largely goes for all of Trump's supporters, too. In return, John McCain made it clear he thought Trump was an asshole.
The president was reportedly disinvited to McCain's funeral months ago, after McCain's battle with cancer took a turn for the worse.
The veteran Arizona Republican senator, 81, died Saturday, a day after his family announced he had decided to discontinue medical treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Throughout McCain's illness, Trump continued to publicly snub him — including a recent appearance in which the president declined to say McCain's name when signing a bill that was named for him.
But you know what? That didn't stop McCain from voting with Trump five out of six times on average in his final year, including passing the Trump tax cut scam, neutering Obama-era rules on the Department of Education and the Interior, supporting all of Trump's cabinet picks (with the singular exception of Mick Mulvaney at OMB) and "being a maverick" and voting against the debt limit increase to fund hurricane relief last year for Texas and Puerto Rico.
For a "bipartisan" senator from a purple state who hated Trump, McCain sure supported a lot of Trump's positions. Trump may be petty and vindictive, but he's using his "opposition" to McCain as much as McCain used his "opposition" to Trump whenever it was politically convenient.
No comments:
Post a Comment