McCain was in Philadelphia Monday night, accepting the Liberty Medal, where he was honored by Dems and Republicans alike for a lifetime of service. McCain warned Americans against “half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.”
McCain described “half-baked, spurious nationalism” as “unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”
On Tuesday, Chris Plante of “The Chris Plante Show” asked the President if he heard McCain’s criticism. Plante said, “You heard what he said yesterday, Senator McCain?”
“Yeah, well I hear it. And people have to be careful because at some point I fight back,” Trump said. “I’m being very nice. I’m being very, very nice. But at some point I fight back, and it won’t be pretty.”
Senator McCain responded to Trump’s warning, “I’ve faced far greater challenges than this,” he told reporters. The McCain-Trump feud started years ago, when Trump said McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam.
“He is not a war hero,” Trump told pollster Frank Luntz in 2015.” “He is a war hero,” Luntz interjected. “He is a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said.
Throughout the 2016 campaign, McCain regularly criticized Trump. McCain completely withdrew his support of the then presidential candidate when the “Access Hollywood” video was uncovered, showing Trump bragging about what he can do to woman sexually.
The feud reached new heights when McCain cast the deciding vote to reject the Republican health care plan. “Senator McCain, you mean the one who voted against Obamacare?” Trump asked, rhetorically, during a sweeping August news conference. “You mean Sen. McCain who voted against us getting good health care?”