Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), accused the Trump administration in a new interview of damaging America’s reputation worldwide and called President Trump “someone who I don’t believe really understands what it means to serve.”
McCain told The Washington Post that, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, she struggled to defend the Trump administration during international trips while doing charity and advocacy work.
“I was overseas at least once a month, if not more,” she said. “I’d watch the demise of respect of our country around the globe, watch us leave our allies on the battlefield, watch us throw away our treaties, etc. You say, ‘Well, we’re better than that.’ But finally, there comes a time when there’s no explanation anymore, and that was very much the case with me.”
“There were so many people like my husband and so many millions of other people who served so nobly. And then to have it tossed away by someone who I don’t believe really understands what it means to serve,” she continued.
The president has pulled the U.S. out of the landmark Paris climate agreement, multiple nuclear treaties and other international agreements. McCain did not cite a specific treaty in the interview published Tuesday.
John McCain, who died of brain cancer in 2018, served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He was overseas as a prisoner of war for close to six years.
Cindy McCain endorsed President-elect Joe Biden in September.
At the time, she tweeted “My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans foremost. There’s only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is @JoeBiden.”
McCain also told the Post that she explicitly endorsed the former vice president and approached his team after The Atlantic reported that Trump asked senior staff ahead of a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
The magazine also reported that Trump referred to American Marines who were killed at Belleau Wood during World War I as “suckers.”
“I thought, ‘My God, how could somebody say something like this about our young people who are willing to fight and die for this country without being asked?’ ” McCain told the Post. “And somehow he thought that they were losers and suckers. And I’d listened to the rants against the Gold Star families, and each blow was a little worse than the last. That was all it took for me.”
Trump has repeatedly denied the comments reported by The Atlantic.
The Associated Press earlier this month called the McCains’ home state of Arizona for Biden. The former vice president was projected to win the White House over one week ago, when he clinched the state of Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes.
However, the president and his campaign have refused to concede, mounting legal battles in key swing states.