Meghan McCain to Klobuchar: Leave my father out of 2020 politics – By Rebecca Morin (USA Today) / May 27 2019
Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, took issue Monday with recent comments by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., after the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said the Arizona senator had recited names of dictators to her during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“On behalf of the entire McCain family – @amyklobuchar please be respectful to all of us and leave my fathers legacy and memory out of presidential politics,” tweeted Meghan McCain, who is a host on ABC’s “The View.”
Klobuchar offered an anecdote about the late Sen. McCain during a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. She noted that while sitting between John McCain and Sen. Bernie Sanders, McCain began naming dictators at Trump’s inauguration.
On behalf of the entire McCain family – @amyklobuchar please be respectful to all of us and leave my fathers legacy and memory out of presidential politics.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) May 27, 2019
“John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation, he understood it,” she said of the Arizona Republican known for his independent streak
“He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did,” she added.
Klobuchar’s campaign did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment about Meghan McCain’s tweet.
Sen. McCain and Trump had a strained relationship prior to the senator’s death in August 2018 after battling brain cancer.
A month before he passed away, McCain issued a statement damning Trump’s meeting with Russia President Vladimir Putin in July 2018.
During a press conference with Putin during a summit in Helsinki, Trump essentially said he believed Putin’s when the Russian leader claimed the Kremlin had not interfered in the 2016 presidential election — a view on the part of the American president that put him at odds with the U.S. intelligence community, which had concluded Russia engaged in election interference.
McCain called the press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” McCain said in the statement. “But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.”
Trump has continued to blast McCain since the late senator’s death. Trump has repeatedly criticized McCain for voting against GOP legislation that would have repealed Obamacare, the signature legislative achievement of Trump’s predecessor and McCain’s 2008 rival for the Oval Office.
Klobuchar has touted her relationship with senators across the aisle and her efforts at promoting bipartisanship as she seeks to run a centrist campaign during the 2020 Democratic primaries.
