Cindy McCain reacts to Trump defeat: ‘What we needed to hear as a country’

The widow of the one-time Republican presidential candidate John McCain was insulted by Donald Trump. She said this after his loss.

Feuding between the late Arizona Senator John McCain and President Donald Trump almost certainly contributed to the latter’s downfall in one of the battleground states that decided the US election over the weekend.

So tense was the pair’s relationship that McCain’s dying wish was for Mr Trump not to attend his funeral despite their joint ties to the Republican party.

As the President tries in vain to hold on to an election he clearly lost, McCain’s wife Cindy has added insult to injury with comments about Democrat Joe Biden’s come-from-behind win.

“It’s time not just for Americans to get together and work together, but most importantly, it’s time that we Republicans put country first, not party,’’ said Ms McCain, whose husband served as a party stalwart for more than 30 years before dying of cancer in 2018.

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John McCain and Donald Trump.

Cindy McCain, wife of US Senator John McCain, kisses his casket during a memorial service at the Arizona Capitol on August 29, 2018, in Phoenix. Picture: Ross D. Franklin/AFP

Speaking with Good Morning America about Biden’s victory speech – a speech that called for unity across the political divide – she said it was “what we needed to hear as a country”.

And she urged Mr Trump to do the dignified thing “by conceding in a gracious manner”.

“We need that not just for a peaceful process for all this – we need it for our country,’’ she said.

Arizona flipped blue for Mr Biden and contributed to his resounding victory after Ms McCain followed her late husband’s lead to break party lines and refuse to endorse Mr Trump.

As Fox News and The Associated Press called the state for Mr Biden, the fury of Mr Trump’s supporters was quickly turned toward Ms McCain.

To understand how Ms McCain could’ve played a role in Mr Trump’s undoing, we have to go back to the 2016 election when, during his campaign, the now-President disparaged the Arizona senator, declaring he was “not a war hero” despite serving – and being captured and tortured – during the Vietnam War.

“He’s not a war hero,” Mr Trump said of Mr McCain in 2015.

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

During a Republican Veterans for Biden-Harris panel, Ms McCain said that in the months leading up to Mr Trump’s election, “I listened to him denigrate my husband, and then denigrate my husband again while (John) was on his death bed.

“And John kept telling me, he said, ‘Don’t. It’s just politics. Don’t react to it.’ And I didn’t.”

But it was the further derision of Mr Trump this year – allegedly referring to Americans who had died in service as “suckers” and “losers” – that lead to Ms McCain finally taking a stand.

“You know, I’m the mother of two veterans and a wife of a veteran, and my father was a veteran. They were not losers and suckers by any chance,” she told 60 Minutes.

“It angered me a great deal. It angered me. And so I thought, you know, I can either sit here and be angry or I can do something.”

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Former US Vice President Joe Biden wipes his eye as he speaks during a memorial service to celebrate the life of US Sen. John McCain. Picture: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP

Mr Biden has been a longtime friend of the McCain family, bonding not only as the parents of children who have served in the military, but also over glioblastoma – the aggressive brain cancer that killed Mr Biden’s son Beau three years before Mr McCain succumbed to the same disease.

“Now more than ever,” Ms McCain said in the Biden campaign’s first TV ad, “we need a president who puts service before self”.

“A president who will lead with courage and compassion, not ego. A president who will respect the sacrifices made by our service members and their families, a president who will honour our fallen heroes and a president who will bring out the best in us, not the worst.”

Ms McCain said Mr Biden would “always fight for the American people, just like John did”.

Mr Trump did not attend McCain’s funeral. Former President Barack Obama and Mr Biden both spoke at a ceremony that included politicians from both sides of American politics.

– With Natalie Brown