Meghan McCain Criticizes Donald Trump's Tweet Honoring POWs After His Past Mockery of John McCain

"No one has forgotten or will ever forget what you said and did," The View co-host tweeted back at the president

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Heidi Gutman/Getty Images

Meghan McCain on Thursday joined in the widespread criticism of President Donald Trump for a tweet he posted in honor of National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day.

The View co-host and others quickly pointed back to Trump’s earlier mockery of Sen. John McCain for being a prisoner of war while fighting in Vietnam.

The president notoriously ridiculed the late Arizona lawmaker for being held captive for more than five years during the Vietnam War, during which he served as a Navy pilot.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump, 73, said in 2015 about Sen. McCain. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

On Thursday, the president sent out a standard tweet in honor of the national day of remembrance to “pay tribute to these Patriots for their unwavering and unrelenting spirit.”

But critics — including Sen. McCain’s 35-year-old daughter, Meghan — were quick to call out Trump, whose more typical presidential moments often run afoul of his long history of insulting other people.

Meghan, The View‘s conservative panelist, has long been at odds with the president over his feud with her late father — which continued even after Sen. McCain’s 2018 death.

Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday that “we honor the more than 500,000 American warriors captured while protecting our way of life.”

“Except for the fact that you don’t like people who were captured — while publicly attacking the most famous modern POW while he fought cancer….,” Meghan tweeted in response. “No one has forgotten or will ever forget what you said and did. No one.”

Others echoed her response.

“Today would be a good day for you to apologize to the family of John McCain,” one user wrote.

“On National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day, I’d like to remind you of the man YOU said wasn’t a hero because he’d been captured,” another response read.

Others simply tweeted quotes from the president’s past comments.

Rather than service in the military, Trump received four student deferments during Vietnam, according to Politico. He also received an additional medical deferment for a bone spur in his foot, although he has avoided answering reporters’ questions then about which foot was the issue.

Trump previously refused to apologize for his comments about McCain, which led to a wave of backlash from Republican lawmakers — some of whom have since become close allies.

“If there was ever any doubt that @realDonaldTrump should not be our commander in chief, this stupid statement should end all doubt,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham in July 2015.

Sean Spicer, who later became the Trump administration’s first press secretary, also defended Sen. McCain against Trump’s comments then.

“.@SenJohnMcCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period,” Spicer tweeted in 2015.

On Thursday, Meghan followed up her initial criticism by sharing Trump’s past quotes in another post on Twitter.

“No one has forgotten this is how you honor POW’s,” she wrote.