Cindy McCain says she'll never respond to Trump's attacks on her late husband

(Image credit: Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)

published 10 May 2019

Cindy McCain is passionate about issues, not politics, and doesn't plan on leading any resistance against President Trump, she told The Washington Post in an interview published Thursday.

The widow of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died last year of brain cancer, reflected on Trump's treatment of her husband; he mocked McCain's time as a prisoner in Vietnam, and even after his death has attacked him for not supporting the GOP attempt to repeal ObamaCare. She hasn't publicly commented on any of Trump's remarks, and doesn't intend to, either. "My job is my family, and what I'm concerned about is whether or not they're happy, whether everyone's got their lives together, whether they need anything," she told the Post's Roxanne Roberts. "I've not thought about responding."

McCain said while she didn't vote for Trump, she's still a Republican, and considers herself a "Reagan conservative, a little more liberal on some of the social issues. ... I believe in what we stand for when we're together as a party and functioning the way we should." Her husband was close friends with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who became a vocal supporter of Trump's following McCain's death, but Graham is still "part of our family," she said. "That doesn't affect our friendship at all."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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