Trump Uses Warship Scandal To Rip John McCain Again

President Donald Trump never turns down an opportunity to insult the late Republican Sen. John McCain.

On Thursday morning, Trump was asked about his latest insult on the military: The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that White House and U.S. Navy officials coordinated to relocate the USS John McCain a warship named in honor of three generations of McCains, all of whom share the name and served in the Navy so that the president wouldn’t have to see it during his recent visit to Japan.

Trump told reporters Thursday that he wasn’t personally involved in that decision, but he made sure to note that he doesn’t like McCain, a war hero with whom he constantly squabbled while the senator was alive.

“John McCain, I wasn’t a fan, but I would never do a thing like that,” Trump said. “Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him. OK? And, they were well-meaning, I will say. I didn’t know anything about it.”

Trump took a similar tone Wednesday, claiming that he “was not informed about anything having to do” with the ship. The New York Times, meanwhile, confirmed that the White House was involved in the complicated process of moving it during his visit.

The comments are par for the course for a president who consistently smears McCain and insults the military. McCain died in August 2018, but Trump so regularly lobs insults at him that his daughter, Meghan McCain, has said that the insults made her “grief unbearable.”

Previously, Trump has lambasted a Navy SEAL commander who headed the raid on Osama bin Laden, insulted Gold Star families and prisoners of war , neglected to visit combat zones and, most recently, moved to pardon war criminals , which military veterans are not pleased about .