Trump attacks on McCain seem to be stirring up support for late senator
By Andrew HowardCronkite News
cronkitenews.azpbs.org WASHINGTON – It’s no secret that President Donald Trump is not a fan of the late Sen. John McCain, but instead of weakening the McCain fan club the president’s latest string of attacks may be having the opposite effect. Republican senators have come forward to defend their former colleague, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has dusted off a proposal to rename a Senate building in McCain’s honor, and analysts are left wondering what good Trump thinks will come of it. It’s all in response to several days of attacks on the Arizona Republican that began Saturday with a Trump tweet accusing McCain of being behind the special counsel’s probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That was followed by more tweets in which Trump mocked McCain for finishing near the bottom of his Naval Academy class and brought up McCain’s dramatic 2017 thumbs-down vote that preserved Obamacare.
Schumer, who had proposed renaming a building for McCain shortly after his August 25 death from brain cancer, tweeted Wednesday that he looks forward “to soon reintroducing my legislation renaming the Senate Russell Building after American hero, Senator John McCain.” Republican lawmakers have also taken McCain’s side. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, told Georgia Public Broadcasting that Trump’s comments were “deplorable.” Others, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, tweeted praise for McCain without mentioning the president’s remarks. “John McCain is an American hero and I am thankful for his life of service and legacy to our country and Arizona,” McSally said. “Everyone should give him and his family the respect, admiration, and peace they deserve.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, McCain’s closest friend in the Senate, told reporters Wednesday that Trump’s comments “hurt him more than they hurt the legacy of Sen. McCain.” “I don’t like when he says things about my friend John McCain,” Graham said. “The best thing that can happen, I think, for all of us is to move forward.”John McCain is an American hero and I am thankful for his life of service and legacy to our country and Arizona. Everyone should give him and his family the respect, admiration, and peace they deserve.
— Martha McSally (@SenMcSallyAZ) March 20, 2019
Others wondered what Trump hoped to get from attacking a man who died seven months ago. Mike Noble, chief of research and managing partner for OH predictive insights, a Phoenix polling company, said he does not “really see the upside” for Trump’s comments, particularly when moderates could be important in Arizona in the 2020 election “From an Arizonan’s opinion, I don’t see the rationale for going after John McCain,” Noble said. “Since Arizona is in play, those moderate Republican, pro-McCain votes are a key voting bloc.” Scott Talan, an American University communications professor, said Trump doesn’t seem to be able to stop himself. “We all have these things in life that bug us, that might annoy us or might upset us, including people,” Talan said. “But do we talk about them all the time? Do we talk about them when we’re supposed to be doing something else? Usually not. “The president seems incapable of any normal sort of bodily or human control over what he says and thinks,” Talan said. Ornstein, who called Trump’s comments “shocking and ridiculous,” sees a different motive: jealousy. “The fact that McCain got that acclaim and he didn’t weighs on him,” he said. – Cronkite News reporter Alyssa Klink contributed to this report. For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org. This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.I look forward to soon re-introducing my legislation re-naming the Senate Russell Building after American hero, Senator John McCain.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 20, 2019
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