Republican strategist Liz Copeland said on Tuesday that the late Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) funeral in Washington, D.C. was a reflection of what Americans are thinking of President Trump.
“At the end of the day, the funeral was reflective of what everyone was thinking,” Copeland, who a former Democrat and the president and founder of Urban Conservative Project, Inc., told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton, on “Rising.”
“I think that when people spoke up, and they spoke out, they were saying that ‘you told us President Trump that during the campaign you would be presidential. Now is the time for you to do it.’ He didn’t do it. It was the appropriate time to call him out,” she continued.
Copeland has publicly criticized the president in the past.
Trump slammed McCain, who is a former POW, after announcing his presidential campaign in 2015, saying the six-term senator and former GOP presidential nominee was not a war hero because he was captured during the Vietnam War.
Republicans and Democrats, including former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, gathered at Washington National Cathedral on Saturday to honor the McCain.
While Trump was not invited to the service, various speakers at the event, including McCain’s daughter, Meghan, jabbed Trump in their eulogies without mentioning him by name.
“He was a great man. We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice, those that live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” Meghan McCain said.
She went on to slam Trump’s campaign slogan, saying John McCain’s America was always great.
“The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold. She’s resourceful, confident, secure. She meets her responsibilities. She speaks quietly because she’s strong. America does not boast because she has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
— Julia Manchester
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