Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Monday he thinks businessman Donald Trump doesn’t owe him an apology but that he might owe an apology “to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who have undergone the prison experience in serving their country.”
Mr. McCain said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he personally is “in the arena” and said what “a great honor of my life it was to serve in the company of heroes — I’m not a hero.”
“But those who were my senior ranking officers, people like Col. Bud Day, congressional medal of honor winner — those [that] inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t have been capable of doing — those are the people that I think he owes an apology to,” he said.
Mr. Trump said over the weekend at an event in Iowa that Mr. McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years, was a hero because “he was captured” and that “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?” later clarifying that he does consider Mr. McCain to be a hero.
But the businessman and 2016 GOP presidential candidate said in an opinion piece for USA Today that he doesn’t “need to be lectured” by his fellow Republican White House hopefuls, many of whom are calling on him to apologize for the remarks.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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