John McCain shrugged off Donald Trump's 'not a war hero' attack saying 'All he did was get people to talk about what a hero I am!' new book reveals
Sen. John McCain shrugged off then GOP candidate Donald Trump's dig that he wasn't a war hero because he got captured, according to a new book by a longtime McCain aide.
Mark Salter, the author of 'The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain,' recalled that he called up the Arizona Republican after hearing Trump's remarks 'and cussed prolifically as I condemned Trump's character, intelligence and appearance.'
'McCain advised me to take it easy. "All he did was get people to talk about what a hero I am all weekend. That's not my problem, it's his,"' Salter wrote in the book, according to Axios.
Sen. John McCain, who died in August 2018, told aide Mark Salter to 'take it easy' after then GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged his service in Vietnam because he got captured. 'All he did was get people to talk about what a hero I am all weekend,' McCain said
Longtime McCain aide Mark Salter is out with a new book about the late senator, suggesting in recent interviews that he wouldn't have supported President Donald Trump's 2020 bid because 'I don't think Donald Trump is someone who improves on longer acquaintance'
Longtime McCain aide Mark Salter wrote a book about his time spent with the late GOP senator
A month into his 2016 presidential run, in July 2015, Trump disparaged McCain at an event with pollster Frank Luntz.
The now president pointed out how he had supported McCain's 2008 presidential bid, which he lost to Democrat Barack Obama.
'I never liked him as much after because I don't like losers,' Trump told the crowd, which broke out in laughter.
Luntz then pointed out that McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was a 'war hero.'
'He was a war hero because he was captured,' Trump uttered. 'I like people who weren't captured,' the president said then.
The McCain-Trump relationship never thawed.
The Arizona senator died in August 2018.
Salter tried to play coy with 'PBS Newhour's' Judy Woodruff on who McCain would have supported in 2020, but he suggested it's likely the 2008 GOP nominee wouldn't have backed Trump.
'So, I imagine he didn't support him last time, and he wouldn't this time. He thought he was something of a clown,' Salter said.
Salter called Trump the 'antithesis' of the moral code McCain had lived by - 'that you act bravely and sacrifice for others.'
'He's also, through ineptitude, through ignorance, doing great damage to alliances that John McCain spent a great deal of time tending to and valuing and helping to thrive. That would stop him,' Salter continued. 'And he's also - his affinity, Trump's affinity for dictators, like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and Erdogan and others, bothered him greatly.'
'And, in fact, the harshest statement I ever heard him make about any president was the statement he made after the Helsinki summit, when Trump said he took the word of Vladimir Putin over the assessment of America's own intelligence services,' Salter added.
Cindy McCain has gotten involved in Democrat Joe Biden's campaign, appearing with Biden and running mate Kamala Harris in Arizona last week.
'I don't wnt to say what he would do in the election. That's not fair to him. He's not here to tell us,' Salter also said. 'But I don't think Donald Trump is someone who improves on longer acquaintance.'