President Donald Trump attacked John McCain yet again on Thursday, calling him 'horrible' after the late senator's two daughters begged earlier that day for the president to leave their dad and family alone.
'I'm not a fan. He was horrible what he did with repeal and replace. What he did to the Republican Party and to the nation, and to sick people that could have had great health care was not good. So I'm not a fan of John McCain and that's fine,' Trump told Fox Business Network.
The president has repeatedly complained about McCain's 2017 vote on the GOP's so-called 'skinny repeal' of Obamacare, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate and rolled back a tax on medical devices.
President Donald Trump attacked John McCain yet again, calling him 'horrible'
Only answering the question? Trump said he only spoke about John McCain because 'you people bring it up' - but spoke about him unprompted in Ohio on Thursday
John McCain died of brain cancer in August
In 2017, McCain gave a dramatic thumbs' down on a GOP vote to repeal Obamacare
McCain gave a dramatic thumbs down on the Senate floor during the vote, which killed Republican efforts to take down former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.
Trump has railed repeatedly against his late nemesis for the past week, starting off with a flurry of critical tweets over the weekend that segued into harsher language in the past few days.
But he denied to Fox Business Network he's spending a lot of time talking about the Vietnam War hero even as he went back to attacking McCain over the infamous Golden Showers dossier, a document with unverified allegations the Russians have blackmail material on the president.
'It's not a good portion of my time, it's a very small portion. But if you realize about three days ago it came out that his main person gave to the FBI the fake news dossier. It was a fake, it was a fraud, it was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. They gave it to John McCain who gave it to the FBI for very evil purposes, that's not good,' he said.
Fox Business Network's anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed him on attacking someone who was dead and could not respond.
'But Mr. President, he's dead. He can't punch back. I know you punch back, but he's dead,' she said.
'No, I don't talk about it,' Trump said. 'People ask me the question, I didn't bring this up. You just brought it up, you asked the question.'
He added: 'You asked me the question, when I went out yesterday to the scrum they asked me the question. When they ask me the question, I answer the question. But you people bring it up, I don't bring it up.'
In fact Trump had spoken about McCain in Ohio on Thursday at a speech which featured no questions from reporters or members of the audience.
The interview was filmed shortly after McCain's daughters both pleaded with the president to leave their father and their family alone.
McCain's youngest daughter Bridget made a rare public statement in defense of her late father and slammed President Trump in the process, calling him a 'child' and saying he wasn't invited to senator's funeral because 'you could not be counted on to be courteous.'
Bridget McCain, 27, offered her thoughts on the president's attacks on her father via her Twitter account, which her sister Meghan McCain then read Thursday morning on ABC's 'The View.'
Meghan McCain read her sister Bridget McCain's defense of their late father during 'The View' on Thursday
John McCain with daughters Bridget and Meghan and wife Cindy on Election Night 2010 in Phoenix
'My little sister Bridget for the first time ever has decided that she wants to speak out,' Meghan McCain announced before sharing her younger sibling's reaction.
'Mr. Trump, everyone doesn't have to agree with my dad or like him, but I do ask that you be decent and respectful. If you can't do those two things, be mindful. We only said good-bye to him almost seven months ago. Even if you were invited to my dad's funeral, you would have only wanted to be there for credit and not for the condolences. Unfortunately, you could not be counted on to be courteous as you are a child in the most important role the world knows,' McCain read.
Her sister was adopted by the McCains from Bangladesh and until now has made rare appearances in public life.
Trump complained during a visit to a manufacturing plant in Ohio on Wednesday that he didn't get thanked for giving McCain 'the kind of funeral that he wanted.'
'I endorsed him at his request and I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this, I didn't get a thank-you. That's okay. We sent him on the way. But I wasn't a fan of John McCain,' Trump said.
He claimed he 'got asked about' the late war hero but the comment came during a free-wheeling speech which was uninterrupted by questions from anyone.
His claim that there were no thanks was also challenged by McCain supporters Thursday.
They highlighted how in August, shortly after McCain's death from brain cancer, his former campaign manager Rick Davis offered a message of thanks from the McCain family to the Trump administration for their help with the funeral.
'The combined efforts of the Trump administration, the White House, Secretary Mattis and the Department of Defense, especially and the Military District of Washington, are very experienced in these issues related to the logistics of a funeral of this magnitude. And we really thank them for coming together very quickly and pulling together all the federal resources that we have,' he said at the time.
The casket of the late John McCain is carried out after the National Memorial Service at the Washington National Cathedral on September 1, 2018
And a spokesperson for the Washington National Cathedral said the president's permission was not needed for McCain's memorial service to be held there.
'Washington National Cathedral was honored to host the funeral service for Senator John McCain. All funerals and memorial services at the Cathedral are organized by the family of the deceased; only a state funeral for a former president involves consultation with government officials,' the spokesperson said. 'No funeral at the Cathedral requires the approval of the president or any other government official.'
The president was criticized after McCain's death for not keeping the flag flying at the White House at half-staff. It was eventually lowered and stayed that way until McCain was buried.
He was not invited to the funeral at the late senator's request. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush gave the eulogies. A slew of political VIPs - Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney and others - were in attendance.
It was notable that Bridget McCain has broken her long public silence and weighed in on the matter. The youngest McCain child has stayed out of the national spotlight and rarely appeared with her father in his public life.
She did read a bible verse at her father's memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church this past August.
But she has otherwise stayed out of the public arena.
'It's very brave of
