Republican Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war during Vietnam, made an unprovoked attack on President Donald Trump this weekend — but it’s Trump’s response (or lack thereof) that has experts surprised.
Trump has a reputation for tit-for-tat responses — but this weekend, he kept his cool on McCain’s thinly veiled insults and focused instead on the decline of the mainstream media.
It is finally sinking through. 46% OF PEOPLE BELIEVE MAJOR NATIONAL NEWS ORGS FABRICATE STORIES ABOUT ME. FAKE NEWS, even worse! Lost cred.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2017
In an interview with C-SPAN that aired Sunday, the six-term Arizona lawmaker lamented that the military “drafted the lowest income level of America and the highest income level found a doctor that would say they had a bone spur.”
One of Trump’s draft deferments came as a result of a physician’s letter stating he suffered from bone spurs in his feet.
McCain spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.
Critics say this is McCain’s retaliation for Trump’s criticism in 2015, when the then-presidential candidate said his fellow Republican wasn’t a “war hero” and added: “I like people who weren’t captured.”
The nasty barb from McCain reflected the escalating fight between Trump, who often has assailed McCain, and the ailing establishment senator, who is battling brain cancer.
Last week, in a speech in Philadelphia, McCain questioned “half-baked, spurious nationalism” in America’s foreign policy. Trump lashed out, insisting he would fight back and “it won’t be pretty.” The president also bemoaned McCain’s decisive vote this past summer in opposition to a GOP bill to dismantle Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, a move that caused the failure of Republican efforts to repeal and replace “Obamacare.”
The constant back-and-forth between the president and McCain stands as the latest skirmish between the two Republican Party heavyweights and another example of Trump tangling with GOP establishment senators who have undermined his agenda in Congress.
Trump in recent weeks has feuded with Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McCain played a consequential role in the health care debate and will be lobbied heavily to support the president’s push to overhaul the tax system.
The senator underwent surgery in mid-July to remove a 2-inch (51-millimeter) blood clot in his brain after being diagnosed with an aggressive tumor called a glioblastoma. It’s the same type of tumor that killed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at age 77 in 2009 and Beau Biden, son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, at 46 in 2015.
The Associated Press contributed to this article