John McCain, Donald Trump Feud Continues During Jake Tapper Interview On CNN

The John McCain-Donald Trump feud has been escalated again. Senator McCain spoke about President Trump in an interview with CNN on Sunday (March 12), not pulling any punches in the process. Before going on the air with Jake Tapper, McCain posted on Twitter that he was about to do the interview. A main topic of conversation was Trump’s recent attacks on President Barack Obama. The interview has already garnered a lot of attention on social media, with voters from both major political parties weighing in with their opinions on the situation.

The John McCain-Donald Trump feud goes back to when the current president made public comments about the Arizona senator during the last election cycle. As a report by NBC News stated back in 2015, Trump mocked the military service of McCain, first saying that McCain was not a war hero and then calling him a “loser” for becoming a prisoner of war. Sound bites from that interview became quite prevalent, gaining McCain a lot of support from both parties. It’s something that still gets referenced quite a bit, nearly two years later.

Ridiculing McCain didn’t go over well for Trump, as it led to a lot of backlash from other Republican leaders. Jeb Bush was one who called for an end to the slanderous attacks that he claimed Trump was committing against McCain and further stated that none of it had anything to do with the election. Little did Rick Perry realize that when he called Trump “unfit” for going on a tirade against McCain, it would garner Trump additional support in the presidential election.

The latest chapter of the John McCain-Donald Trump feud stems from a series of posts that the president put on his Twitter account during a March 4 online session. In the tweets that Trump made, he accused President Obama of wiretapping his phones at Trump Hotel. Three Twitter posts made at roughly 4 a.m. PT made some very inflammatory statements about Obama while inferring that wiretapping was done in order to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. It immediately caused a political firestorm that still hasn’t died down in the succeeding days.

McCain has repeatedly asked Trump to clarify his statements, joining a chorus of politicians on both sides of the aisle that want to know more about these accusations. During the CNN interview with Jake Tapper, McCain joined former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, and President Obama in requesting more information. McCain also alluded to the fact that Trump needed to either address the accusations or withdraw them publicly. At the same time, he was also careful to continue supporting the leader of the Republican Party.

“I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the President of the United States could clear this up in a minute. All he has to do is pick up the phone, call the director of the CIA, director of national intelligence and say, ‘OK, what happened?'”

So what’s going to happen next in the John McCain-Donald Trump feud? The political “talking heads” were sure on Sunday that the president is going to take a lot of time to address McCain’s CNN interview overnight and into the early morning hours of Monday (March 13). It could mean that Trump turns to Twitter in order to say his piece without addressing questions from reporters. In the past, Trump has taken any opportunity he can find to lash out at CNN, continuously calling the network “fake news” in recent weeks.

Senator McCain’s comments about President Trump weren’t limited to just the accusations against President Obama, as anchor Jake Tapper also brought up how Russia has become a hot topic of conversation. Following McCain’s assertion that Trump couldn’t leave the Obama situation out there without addressing it, he spoke up about potential links between the current administration and Russia. While not openly stating that he believes an investigation needs to take place, he did leave an open-ended response to questions about it.

“There’s a lot of aspects of this whole relationship with Russia and (Russian President) Vladimir Putin that requires further scrutiny, and so far, I don’t think the American people have gotten all the answers. In fact, I think there’s a lot more shoes to drop from this centipede. This whole issue of the relationship with the Russians and who communicated with them and under what circumstances clearly cries out for investigations, but I would also point out, we should not assume guilt until we have a thorough investigation”

So will President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed get a lot of attention in the hours leading up to the next work week? The only one who may know that exact answer is the president himself. It appears very unlikely that he will go 24 hours without addressing the comments that Senator McCain made in his interview, though, possibly setting the stage for several late-night Twitter posts. As CNN’s Anderson Cooper stated in a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, it is also highly likely that Trump was watching Tapper speak with McCain while it was taking place.

If nothing else, this interview done by Jake Tapper continues to show how there is a disconnect within the Republican Party, as two of its most vocal and public representatives are clearly on different pages when it comes to towing the party line. It could lead to the senator and president eventually sitting down to talk out what has taken place, but it doesn’t currently appear that there is an ending in sight to the John McCain-Donald Trump feud.

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