Jimmy Carter: Trump statement on McCain was ‘at the best, adequate’

Former President Carter said Tuesday that President Trump made a “very serious mistake” in his initial handling of the death of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but added that he was satisfied with Trump’s eventual statement on the matter.

“I think that was a very serious mistake that President Trump made and his friends and his opponents corrected him, I think, quite adequately,” Carter told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview.

“And now this most recent statement he’s made, I’d say is OK, it’s still not as enthusiastic as it should be,” Carter added.

{mosads}Trump drew widespread backlash on Monday after White House flags returned to full staff less than 48 hours after McCain’s death.

The president typically orders flags to remain at half-staff through the burial of a major public figure, which in this case is Sunday.

Trump also refused to answer shouted questions from reporters about McCain during multiple White House events on Monday.

The president later issued a proclamation Monday afternoon expressing “respect” for McCain’s service and ordered flags to be lowered once again to half-staff.

Carter said Tuesday that the president’s statement was “at the best, adequate.”

“Now that the flag has sort of been lowered during an appropriate period on behalf of John McCain to remember him, I think is very good,” Carter said on MSNBC. “So I’m glad to see that it was done, although it was tardy and mistaken at first.”

Carter, who made multiple television appearances on Tuesday to promote his work with Habitat for Humanity and weigh in on the death of McCain, praised the fellow Naval Academy graduate for his service in the military and Congress.

McCain died Saturday at age 81, a year after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Trump and the Senate icon have clashed for years. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump questioned whether McCain, who was held captive during the Vietnam War, was a “war hero” and repeatedly blasted the Arizona senator’s vote against an ObamaCare repeal bill last summer.

McCain remained one of Trump’s staunchest Republican critics even after his cancer diagnosis took him away from Washington, D.C.

The animosity did not relent in the days following the senator’s death. 

Trump published a brief tweet on Saturday expressing his “deepest sympathies and respect” to the McCain family, but did not offer any praise for the senator himself.

Multiple media outlets reported that Trump rejected a laudatory statement from the White House praising McCain as a “hero” in favor of the tweet.