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- Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the late Sen. John McCain compared President Donald Trump to notable dictators during his 2017 inauguration ceremony.
- The 2020 contender told a crowd in Iowa that the Republican senator recited the names of dictators while seated onstage for the president’s swearing-in.
- McCain and Trump feuded publicly for years through the 2016 presidential campaigns and election, and Trump has continued his hits after McCain’s death.
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Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the late Sen. John McCain compared President Donald Trump to notable dictators aloud during the president’s 2017 inauguration ceremony.
Speaking in Iowa on a campaign stop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Klobuchar said she was seated next to Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and longtime Republican McCain, who "knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation."
"I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation," Klobuchar said. "He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did."
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Read more: 12 times Trump provoked a backlash with the US military and veterans in 2018
McCain and Trump publicly squared off multiple times since the 2016 Election. Trump jabbed at the senator for his vote that killed the Obamacare repeal and raised eyebrows by mocking his capture while serving as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, saying he likes "people who weren’t captured."
McCain’s August 2018 death brought the pair’s fraught relationship into focus, as Trump was asked not to attend the funeral and McCain’s daughter Meghan took aim at the state of the country under the president in her eulogy for the massive crowd of Washington heavyweights.
"We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness," McCain said. "The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served."
McCain then zeroed in with a harsh rebuke to Trump’s campaign slogan.
"The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great," she said to thunderous applause.
Trump has kept up his hits against the senator even after his death, complaining in March that he didn’t get a "thank you" for approving funeral plans for McCain, despite his dislike for him.
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Ellen Cranley)