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Cindy McCain has endorsed Joe Biden for the presidency, a surprising reprimand of Donald Trump by the widow of the Republican party candidate in 2008.
Cindy McCain tweeted Tuesday: “My husband John lived by one code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans first and foremost. There is only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is Joe Biden. “
My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans first and foremost. There is only one candidate in this race who defends our values as a nation, and that is @Joe Biden.
– Cindy McCain (@cindymccain) September 22, 2020
Trump has had a strained relationship with members of John McCain’s family ever since he despised the Arizona senator during his 2016 campaign. The president has publicly criticized McCain numerous times and was enraged when the senator voted against an effort to repeal Obamacare. During his campaign, Trump infamously said of McCain: “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t caught … He lost and he let us down. I never liked it so much after that. I don’t like losers. “
However, the McCains have not supported Trump’s rivals.
Cindy McCain’s endorsement could help Biden appeal to Republicans unhappy with the president and give the former vice president a boost in Arizona, a crucial state that McCain represented in Congress for 35 years. She remains a revered figure since her death in 2018 from complications from a brain tumor, particularly among independent voters whom Biden is courting.
Biden told donors Tuesday night that McCain’s endorsement was coming “because of what (Trump) talks about how my son and John and others who are heroes, who served their country. You know, he said they’re ‘losers, fools.’
Biden was referring to comments Trump allegedly made poking fun at the American war dead. Trump has denied making the comments, first reported through anonymous sources by The Atlantic, but many of the comments were later confirmed by the Associated Press.
Initially, Cindy McCain was not expected to offer an explicit endorsement of Biden, but she had already hit bat for her presidential run. She lent her voice to a video that aired during the Democratic National Convention and focused on Biden’s close friendship with her late husband.
John McCain was assigned as a military aide to Biden, then a senator, during a trip abroad, and their families formed a lasting friendship. They later shared a grim bond over glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that killed Biden’s son, Beau, three years before McCain succumbed to the same disease.
John McCain said in 2016 that he could not support Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016, citing Trump’s degrading remarks about women.
“It’s not nice for me to give up my party’s nominee,” McCain said during a debate while seeking his sixth term in the Senate. “She won the nomination fairly.”
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