“He is not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who were not captured,” Trump said of McCain, a Navy veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has replied critics who used the funerals for singer Aretha Franklin and U.S. Sen. John McCain on Saturday to criticise his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”.
Trump tweeted a four-word reply, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” to get back especially at Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Arizona Republican Senator.
Meghan McCain, had on Saturday, alluded to Trump’s slogan during her eulogy for her father, who died of brain cancer at age 81 on Aug. 25.
“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” McCain said at a memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington.
(Read what Meghan McCain said at her father’s funeral: America has always been great
The Arizona Republic reports that the audience, which included past Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, applauded the comment.
The late senator, a fervent critic of the president, had requested that Trump not be invited to his funeral.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, however, were in attendance.
Much of the animus between Trump and McCain can be traced to a remark Trump made in July 2015, at an event in Ames, Iowa.
“He is not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who were not captured,” Trump said of McCain, a Navy veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
While mourners attended McCain’s memorial service, the president was playing golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Loudoun County, Virginia.
On Friday in Detroit, singer Stevie Wonder also made reference to Trump’s slogan during his tribute to Franklin, the legendary recording artist who died of pancreatic cancer at age 76 on Aug. 16.
“What needs to happen today, not only in this nation but throughout the world, is that we need to make love great again,” Wonder said, according to the Hill.
Wonder was just one of several speakers in Detroit who, directly or indirectly, took verbal shots at Trump.
Other critics of the president included Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Meanwhile, Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump’s campaign, came to the president’s defence following the weekend of insults.
“(Donald Trump) ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON! Some people will never recover from that. #SorryNotSorry Yes, #MAGA,” Pierson tweeted.
