President Trump on Thursday knocked the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), saying that although he was “a lousy candidate with lots of bad policy,” he was a victim of “deadheads” who sabotaged his campaign.
“McCain was a lousy candidate with lots of bad policy, but the ‘deadheads’ sabotaged his campaign from the inside, and never gave him a chance to win. Hope they were happy with OBiden, who gave you me!” Trump tweeted.
The president was commenting on a video clip where former Alaska governor and McCain’s 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that at least one of the people on their campaign who has endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “was never on [their] side to begin with.”
Palin was specifically asked about Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist who worked on the McCain-Palin campaign and later co-founded the Lincoln Project, a prominent anti-Trump GOP group.
“They jumped ship early in terms of their enthusiasm for the Republicans being elected that year in ’08 and that’s evident by what they’re doing today,” she said.
Palin called former McCain staffers like Schmidt “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” adding that “there was a lot of sabotage going on there.”
The Democratic National Convention this week has featured appearances from a handful of prominent Republicans who have thrown their support behind Biden.
Though not a formal endorsement, on Tuesday the convention featured a message from Cindy McCain, the widow of the late senator, where she touted Biden and her husband’s relationship.
Trump has long feuded with the McCain family, beginning in 2015 when he said John McCain, who served as a senator for more than 30 years after being held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, wasn’t a war hero “because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”