ABC’s The View co-host Meghan McCain said Saturday evening that no one will ever love President Donald Trump in the same way her late father Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was loved.
“No one will ever love you the way they loved my father…. I wish I had been given more Saturday’s with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine?” McCain wrote on Twitter.
The View co-host’s scathing remarks came in response to President Trump’s criticism of her late father’s involvement in giving the FBI a copy of the largely debunked Steele dossier, which purported nefarious ties between the president and Russia.
Appearing on the Fox News Channel Saturday, former independent counsel Ken Starr said that while McCain was an “American hero,” if reports of his handling of the dossier are accurate, it would be a “very dark stain” on his legacy.
President Trump quoted Starr’s remark, tweeting: “Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier “is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain. He had far worse “stains” than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!”
In his autobiography, The Restless Wave, McCain wrote of the dossier that he “did what duty demanded I do” in handing it over to law enforcement. “I discharged that obligation, and I would do it again. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell,” he declared.
Meghan McCain’s latest remarks follow a series of critical statements about President Trump and his administration. Appearing on CNN with host Van Jones in late January, McCain said she hates the United States without her father’s leadership. “As an American, I hate this country without him in it. I know that sounds awful. I don’t hate America but I just hate it without his leadership,” she said when asked how she was handling her father’s passing.
McCain infamously included several jabs at President Trump in her eulogy for her father.
“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” she began. “The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly.”
In a veiled knock on the president’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, she added, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
In February, McCain discussed with late-night host Stephen Colbert her thoughts on President Trump’daughterer and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, attending her father’s funeral.
“I didn’t actually think about who would be attending the funeral, strangely,” McCain told the funnyman. “The answer is no, I did not know [Jared and Ivanka] would be attending his funeral. … I thought that my family had made it clear, or at least I had, that the Trumps are unwelcome around me… So I was surprised when they were there.”
“It made me uncomfortable,” she added, “and I hope I made them uncomfortable, honestly, with everything.”