Politics - News Analysis

Mike Pence Just Had the Gall to Compare the Late Sen. John McCain to Trump, ‘Trump is the Heir to McCain’

The late Sen. John McCain was a “strong-willed and hard-headed” leader with the courage to deliver hard messages to friends, according to Vice President Mike Pence, just like … Donald Trump.

Pence lavished praise on McCain at the inaugural John McCain dissertation award ceremony, held in the Maximilianeum, the neo-Renaissance seat of the Bavarian legislature. He then pivoted abruptly to Trump, whose relationship with McCain was one of mutual loathing.

“And I’m pleased to say that America has such leadership today,” Pence said to the bemusement of the late senator’s widow, Cindy, and dozens of foreign policy leaders.

In an ambitious attempt to bandage over domestic and geopolitical wounds, Pence continued: “In one moment he [McCain] would speak to you in light terms, always setting you at ease, and in a few moments that would change, as he would tell you how things really needed to be. And I think that’s a distinctly American quality. It’s a quality I promise you that we have in the president of the United States today.”

Cindy McCain appeared to differ, saying of her late husband in what sounded like an allusion to Trump: “He knew the alliance was being tested by adversaries without and even by friends within.”

Trump and McCain were not close, and not friends. John McCain made sure that Donald Trump was not invited to his funeral, and last week daughter Meghan McCain says she was upset that Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended the funeral.

Trump famously once said that McCain, a Vietnam war POW who was held by the enemy for five and a half years, wasn’t a hero because he was captured.

Twitter was disgusted:

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