Donald Trump and John McCain.
Darren Hauck/Getty Images; Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Trump again mocked John McCain in his new book, per an excerpt published by The New York Post.
Trump claimed that McCain had “the world’s longest funeral” back in 2018.
“Much like his wars, it never ended,” Trump wrote, per The New York Post’s published excerpt.
In his new book, “Letters to Trump,” President Donald Trump mocked the late Sen. John McCain and said the late senator got the “world’s longest funeral.”
The New York Post published a paragraph from “Letters to Trump” on Wednesday. The book is selling for $399 for a signed copy, and $99 for a regular version.
Trump claimed that he, as president, granted McCain “the world’s longest funeral,” erroneously claiming that the mourning lasted 11 days, per The New York Post’s published excerpt.
“Much like his wars, it never ended,” Trump wrote, according to the excerpt.
Trump’s claim that he gave permission for McCain’s funeral also does not hold water.
The venue, Washington National Cathedral, shot down that claim he had a role, per a CBS report, clarifying that only state funerals for former presidents need government approval. Trump did approve a military flight to transfer his remains from Arizona to DC, the BBC reported.
“I never warmed to him,” Trump added in the book, writing that he “never felt good about anybody having anything to do with John McCain and never will.”
Following his death from brain cancer in August 2018, McCain was honored in a series of ceremonies held over five days. He lay in state at both the Arizona Capitol building and the US Capitol before his burial at the US Naval Academy Cemetery.
Trump, who was president at the time, was not invited to McCain’s memorial events. Instead, two former presidents — Barack Obama and George W. Bush — gave eulogies to McCain.
Trump’s comments in his book are the latest in his numerous statements disparaging McCain and members of his family.
In 2015, when Trump was running for president, he claimed McCain was not a war hero.
“He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said in 2015.
This comment from Trump disparaged McCain’s past as a prisoner of war. McCain’s fighter plane was shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He survived torture and imprisonment in Vietnam before his release in 1973.
While he was president, Trump also re-tweeted news articles that called McCain a “loser.”
Trump has also slammed McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain.
In 2021, he labeled Meghan McCain a “bully” and a “lowlife.” This was after she called Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner “funeral crashers” for showing up at John McCain’s memorial service.
“They should never have come, they had no business being there, I remember seeing them and seeing her specifically,” Meghan McCain said of Ivanka Trump and Kushner in 2021. “They had no goddamn business being there and it’s something that still angers me, clearly.”
Representatives for Trump and the McCain Institute did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.