Meghan McCain, a political pundit and the daughter of Arizona Sen. John McCain, says she doesn’t expect President Trump to criticize her father’s war service any time soon. McCain made the comments on Politico’s “Women Rule” podcast, where she detailed a phone conversation with the president that touched on his criticisms of her father.
“[Mr. Trump] actually reached out to me and we had a very nice conversation and I feel comfortable going forward if he would say or do anything in the realm of talking about my father’s war injuries in that nature, I don’t think he would go there again,” said McCain, a co-host of ABC’s “The View.” She added, “I don’t think at this point in his administration it would be beneficial to him in any way.”
McCain said she was “deeply hurt” by Mr. Trump’s comments during the campaign.
“He’s not a war hero,” Mr. Trump said at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit in 2015 when moderator Frank Luntz brought up Sen. McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee.
“He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?”
McCain, a naval aviator during the Vietnam War and the son of an admiral, was shot down during a combat mission and held in captivity for over 5 years as a prisoner of war. He was frequently tortured by his captors.
“I wish there would be sort of more respect in general but my father never toes the party line no matter who’s president,” McCain said. She said added that it was “rational” her father would be a “thorn in Trump’s side.”
McCain said her father is now doing “really well” after briefly being hospitalized for side effects of chemotherapy treatments for brain cancer. She said the Republican Senator had a “rough bout” during Christmas but he still “loves being talked about.”
McCain also took the president’s eldest daughter to task, questioning Ivanka Trump’s claims that despite her role in the Trump administration, she’s not a “political person.”
“The part that I find confusing about her is that she works in the administration; she has an office in the White House, and she has claimed not to be a political person,” McCain said. She added, “You’re an adviser to your father, who also happens to be the president, and you’re not a political person? I don’t like things like that.”
McCain said she wishes she heard more from Ivanka Trump on “all politics” and not just issues like paid family leave or the child tax credit, two issues the first daughter has spoken out about repeatedly. McCain noted, however, that she can “only imagine how difficult and complicated her life is right now.
“I really only try to have compassion for it,” McCain said.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
