Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Thursday slammed President Donald Trump’s recent string of attacks against the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), saying his jabs were doing nothing to help advance his political agenda.
The “Fox & Friends” co-host lamented that Trump, during a speech at a tank factory in Ohio on Wednesday, had undermined his own message by going after McCain and George Conway, husband to top White House aide Kellyanne Conway.
“I think the president’s record is so, so smart,” Kilmeade said. “But the problem is, he swamped his own message by going after George Conway, and in that speech, inexplicably segue into going after John McCain. It makes absolutely no sense. ... John McCain passed away six months ago.”
Trump, during his speech Wednesday, complained that he never got a “thank you” for approving McCain’s state funeral arrangements.
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” Trump told the crowd. “I don’t care about this, I didn’t get ‘thank you,’ but that’s OK. We sent him on the way. But I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.”
His comments followed a series of attacks he’s made in recent weeks against McCain, who died in August 2018, more than a year after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He said on Tuesday at the White House that he was “never a fan” of the Arizona lawmaker and “never will be.”
Over the weekend, in a series of tweets, Trump blasted McCain for helping to kill a GOP bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He also called out McCain’s academic record when he was a student years ago at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and falsely claimed there was evidence that he had provided the infamous Steele dossier, which alleges Russian blackmail on the president, to the media.
Trump and McCain regularly butted heads over the past few years. The president infamously claimed McCain, a decorated Navy veteran, wasn’t a “war hero” because he was “captured” and held for over five years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
The president did not attend McCain’s funeral — reportedly at the request of the senator’s family.
H/T Mediaite