The son of the late Republican senator John McCain – whose war record was disparaged by Donald Trump – has added his voice to criticism of the former president’s controversial Arlington cemetery visit, accusing him of violating a sacred burial site for political purposes.
First Lieutenant Jimmy McCain, an intelligence officer in the 158th infantry regiment of the national guard, said Trump’s behaviour at the cemetery – America’s most revered burial ground for fallen military personnel and military heroes – was in line with previous acts of disrespect.
He told CNN that Trump’s attitude to military service has driven him away from the Republican party of his father, adding that he had changed his registered voter affiliation to Democrat and planned to vote for Kamala Harris in the forthcoming presidential election.
Trump’s reputation for disdaining military personnel is rooted in his first presidential run in 2016, when he said McCain Sr, who died in 2018, did not deserve the war hero status accorded to him because he had been captured during the Vietnam war.
He has since been reported to have called US soldiers buried at a first world war cemetery in France “suckers” and “losers” and questioned the value of the Congressional Medal of Honor, generally given for acts of military heroism.
McCain said the shift in his political affiliation had been party influenced by Trump’s comments about his father. “Hearing things [from Trump] like, he was a loser because he was captured – I don’t think I could ever overlook that,” he said.
But he also suggested Trump had effectively violated the service of fallen soldiers in last week’s episode. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice,” said McCain, whose grandfather and great-grandfather are buried at Arlington.
The Republican presidential nominee has drawn broad condemnation and a rebuke from the US army after a visit to the cemetery ostensibly to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 American servicemen during the US pullout from Afghanistan in 2021 devolved into a campaign photo opportunity.
Members of Trump’s campaign staff reportedly pushed aside a female cemetery worker when she tried to enforce federal regulations prohibiting taking camera and film equipment into section 60, the facility area reserved for those killed in the Afghan and Iraq campaigns.
Pictures and footage were subsequently published of a smiling Trump giving the thumbs up while posing alongside some of the fallen servicemen’s family members, who had invited him. The graves of other personnel – whose families did not give permission – can be clearly seen in the background. Some of them have condemned the visit.
Trump has defended it and released supportive statements from relatives of six of the armed forces members killed in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing.
On a statement on his Truth Social site on Wednesday, he went further, accusing Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, of making up the story and claiming there had been no altercation.
“There was no conflict or ‘fighting’ at Arlington National Cemetery last week,” he wrote. “It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad. She made it all up to make up for the fact that she and Sleepy Joe [Biden] have BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS for the INCOMPETENT AFGHANISTAN Withdrawal.”
But speaking to CNN, McCain suggested Trump’s actions were driven by feelings of insecurity about his own lack of military service experience.
“It was a violation,” he said. “I just think that for anyone who’s done a lot of time in their uniform, they just understand that inherently – that it’s not about you there. It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country.”
“Many of these men and women who served their country chose to do something greater than themselves. They woke up one morning, they signed on the dotted line, they put their right hand up and they chose to serve their country. And that’s an experience that Donald Trump has not had. And I think that might be something that he thinks about a lot.”
