


Donald Trump’s contempt of Sen. John McCain in life and death is on full display in his new $95 book.
“Letters to Trump” features commentary about the war hero-turned-Republican stalwart from the former president, who mused that his 2018 state funeral was too long.
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“I never warmed to him,” wrote Trump, “never felt good about anybody having anything to do with John McCain and never will, even despite the fact that at their request, I gave him the world’s longest funeral, 11 days. Much like his wars, it never ended.”
McCain’s memorial events actually spanned five days, not 11. He lay in state at the Arizona Capitol Building for a day ahead of a memorial service in Phoenix.
From there, his body was taken to Washington, DC, where he lay in state at the US Capitol for one day before a memorial at the Washington National Cathedral and burial at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery over the next two.
Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral after the then-sitting president disparaged the disabled Vietnam veteran’s five and a half years as a prisoner of war while running for office.
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Instead, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush — who both thwarted McCain’s bids for the White House — were asked to eulogize McCain, who served as a senator from Arizona for 31 years before his death from brain cancer at the age of 81.
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Trump’s tome went on to mention McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain, formally of ABC’s “The View,” who he once smeared as a “lowlife” and “bully.”
“At the request of many of [Meghan’s] representatives, I made it possible for her father to have the world’s longest funeral, designed and orchestrated by him, even though I was never, to put it mildly, a fan,” continued Trump. “In his own very special way, he was a RINO’s RINO.”
The bad blood between the two began when McCain called Trump’s statements on national security “uninformed and indeed dangerous” as he ran for president in 2015.
Trump countered by saying McCain was “not a war hero” and that he preferred “people who weren’t captured.”
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The former Navy pilot was shot down in 1967 over Hanoi and tortured in captivity. He refused to be released before his fellow prisoners and was eventually freed in 1973. The experience left McCain with permanently disabled arms.
In 2017, McCain torpedoed a GOP proposal pushed by Trump that would have repealed Obama’s universal health care bill.
Trump continued to mock McCain before and after his death, but took a break from the acrimony to express “sympathies and respect” to his family the day he died.
“Letters to Trump” is a selection of private letters between the Republican and leaders and influencers including McCain, as well as commentary from the ex-prez and current 2024 candidate.