[ad_1]
Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Senator John McCain, formally endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday, berating President Donald Trump for his reported comments in which she called members of the military “losers.”
‘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 stands up for our values as a nation, and that is @JoeBiden, ” she tweeted Tuesday night, hours after Biden made the surprising announcement about her endorsement during a virtual fundraiser.
Biden said Cindy McCain backed him because of comments Trump was reported to have made about the uniforms, calling them “losers” and “fools” in an Atlantic article that the president has denied.
Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I’m about to go to one of these Zooms with John McCain’s wife, who is the first time to endorse me so she talks to my son and John’s who are heroes who served. their country, you know he said they are losers, they are fools, ” Biden said on the fundraising call.
Beau Biden, the late son of the former vice president, and McCains’ two sons, John Sidney McCain IV and James McCain, have served in uniform.
Cindy McCain, who has stayed out of politics after her husband’s death, told the Arizona Republic that her endorsement had nothing to do with the John McCain deal at the hands of the president.
“It had nothing to do with John McCain at all; it had everything to do with how I felt and how I feel, especially during these difficult times, ” he said, noting Biden’s respect for the military.
“That is really important to my family,” he said. ‘Our members of the armed forces are not losers. They are not losers. You call one a loser, you call every member of the military losers, including my son.
In his statement endorsing Biden, he pointed out their political differences, but praised him as a fellow father who has sent a child to war.
“Joe and I don’t always agree on issues, and I know he and John certainly had some passionate discussions, but he is a good and honest man. He will guide us with dignity, ” Cindy McCain wrote on Twitter.
“He will be a commander-in-chief on whom the best fighting force in the history of the world can depend, because he knows what it’s like to send a child to fight.
Biden responded to her tweet with one of his own: ‘Cindy, I am deeply honored to have your support and your friendship. This election is bigger than any political party. It requires that we all come together as one United States to restore the soul of the nation. Together, we will. ‘
His decision culminates a years-long feud between the McCain family and President Trump.
McCain was one of the nation’s most prominent and respected Republican senators, but he repeatedly faced Trump before his death in 2018. The relationship was so bad that the disputes continue to this day. Now his widow supports the Democratic presidential candidate.
Biden, served in the Senate for decades with McCain and the two had overlapping interests, particularly in foreign policy.
The men became close and Biden delivered one of the eulogies at McCain’s funeral in Arizona.
Biden’s campaign did not immediately provide details about the endorsement of Cindy McCain beyond what Biden revealed on the call.
Senator John McCain’s widow Cindy backs former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate revealed Tuesday.
Cindy McCain answered for Biden during the Democratic convention
Cindy McCain also shot a video of Biden at his mostly virtual convention last month. She talked about how Biden met McCain when he was assigned as a military aide on a Congressional trip abroad. The two became friends and the families went on picnics together.
‘They just sat and joked. It was like a comedy show, sometimes, watching them both, ” she said.
She did not appear at the convention, but made sure her voice was heard.
Joe Biden said in late August that he planned to visit Arizona, McCain’s home state, after Labor Day. No visits have been announced, but it would be a likely place for Cindy McCain to appear in public with Biden.
Democrats are hopeful they can take Arizona this year.
With the exception of Bill Clinton’s victory in 1996, Arizona has voted Republican since 1952. Trump had made several campaign visits to the state, as had Vice President Mike Pence. Ivanka Trump was there last week.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) receives the 2017 Medal of Freedom from former Vice President Joe Biden at the National Constitution Center on October 16, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In April, before Trump’s comments, Cindy McCain called Biden a “wonderful man and a dear friend to the McCain family.”
“However,” he added, “I have no intention of getting involved in presidential politics.”
Biden said his change of mind came after The Atlantic reported last month, citing sources with knowledge of the situation, that Trump had called the fallen troops “losers” and “fools.”
A case related to Trump’s cleared trip to the Aisne-Marne cemetery in France. The White House denied it.
John McCain, the son of a Navy admiral who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, promoted his service throughout his life. Trump mocked him in 2016, saying ‘I like people who weren’t caught.’
McCain’s daughter Meghan, a critic of Trump who criticized the president on ABC’s ‘The View,’ spoke about her own preferences in April.
“You shouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist” to know their intentions, he said. “There is a man who has made the pain in my life a living hell and another man who has literally guided me through the grieving process,” he said.
Trump and the late senator had a long history of feud with the president that targeted McCain both before and after his death.
In 2015, as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump said that McCain, who spent five and a half years in captivity during the Vietnam War, He wasn’t a hero ‘because he was captured. I like people who weren’t caught. ‘
In July 2017, McCain, in his last vote as a senator, angered Trump when he gave a dramatic thumbs down to vote against the repeal of President Obama’s health care law. McCain was the deciding vote.
When McCain died on a Saturday in 2018 after suffering from brain cancer, the Trump administration lowered the flag over the White House at half mast, but raised it on Monday.
There was a public outcry and the flag was finally lowered again. Trump was deliberately not invited to McCain’s funeral, which took place at the National Cathedral in Washington.
Instead, McCain was praised by Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential race with Biden as his running mate, and former President George W. Bush, who defeated McCain in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Bill and Hillary Clinton were also present, as well as a who’s who in the political world.
Biden praised McCain at a memorial service for him in Arizona before his official state funeral. Biden was a coffin bearer for McCain during the service at the Washington National Cathedral.
Cindy McCain with her son John McCain IV at the senator’s funeral in August 2018
Joe Biden seen with his son Beau, who died in 2015, at Camp Victory outside Baghdad on July 4, 2009.
Even after his death, Trump continued to attack John McCain and persecuted him in March 2019 for his role in the Justice Department investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. During that contest, McCain received a copy. from the unverified Christopher Steele file, which claimed the Russians had blackmail material on Trump, and turned it over to then-FBI Director James Comey. Later, a longtime McCain aide, David Kramer, admitted that he distributed it to various news organizations.
And during Trump’s visit to Japan in May 2019, the White House asked the US Navy to move the warship USS John S. McCain ‘out of sight’ ahead of President Trump’s visit. to the Yokosuka Naval Base shipyard, where several American battleships were docked. .
The ship is actually named after three McCains who served in the Navy: the late senator, as well as his grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., an admiral during World War II, and his father, John S. McCain Jr. , an admiral in the Vietnam era.
Trump denied knowledge of the request. Meghan McCain, in response, called the president a ‘boy’ who will not allow her late father to rest in peace.
Trump is a child who will always be deeply threatened by the greatness of my father’s incredible life.
“ There is a lot of criticism about how much I talk about my father, but nine months since he passed away, Trump does not let him RIP. So I have to defend it. Makes my pain excruciating, ” he wrote on Twitter.
Biden’s campaign has promoted a message of unity and has presented himself as someone who can unite the country.
At the Democratic convention, a handful of Republicans backed Biden, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former New York Rep. Susan Molinari, and former California Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman, a former CEO of Hewlett Packard who now runs Quibi.
