Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), condemned former President Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery as a “violation” and said he will vote for Vice President Harris.
In an interview with CNN, the younger McCain said he changed his voter registration from independent to Democrat weeks ago and plans to vote for Harris in November. He also told CNN he “would get involved in any way I could” to help Harris get elected.
Jimmy McCain, who has served for 17 years in the military and is an intelligence officer, said he was angered by Trump’s conduct at the cemetery last week, adding “it was a violation.”
“It just blows me away,” he told CNN. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” about being in a political ad.
“I just think that for anyone who’s done a lot of time in their uniform, they just understand that inherently — that it’s not about you there. It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country,” he added.
Trump visited the cemetery to mark the anniversary of the 2021 Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members. Trump has said family members of those killed asked him to visit and take pictures with them, but he has been criticized for using the graves as a campaign backdrop. A confrontation reportedly took place when cemetery staff members tried to stop Trump’s team from photographing and filming a solemn area of the cemetery set aside for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activists within the cemetery, and the Army last week said an employee was pushed aside by the Trump team when trying to enforce the rules on cemetery grounds.
John McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, endorsed Biden in 2020. John McCain and Biden were close friends from their time in the Senate.
John McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, is a Trump critic but has not endorsed Harris and indicted on the social platform X that she won’t.
“Please stop trying to turn me into a progressive. It’s a fever dream,” she wrote last week. “I’m a life long, generational conservative.”
Trump attacked John McCain numerous times, most publicly in 2015 when he said he’s not a war hero because he was captured. The senator, who died in 2018, was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years.
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