Trump has had few good words to say about John McCain and the feud stretches back to at least 2015. Here is a potted history.
Trump and McCain feuded for years, and the enmity continued beyond the grave
June 30, 2015: ‘I just disagree with his comments about the, quote, Mexicans,’ McCain said about the campaign speech in which Trump suggested Mexican immigrants bring ‘drugs’ and ‘crime’ into the U.S. and that some of them are ‘rapists.’
July 16, 2015: Trump calls McCain ‘weak’ during rally in Arizona. McCain hit back telling the New Yorker that Trump ‘fired up the crazies’ before Trump said ‘The thousands of people that showed up for me in Phoenix were amazing Americans. @SenJohnMcCain called them ‘crazies’–must apologize!’. He then added that McCain graduated last in his class in Annapolis and said he was a ‘dummy’.
July 18, 2015: Trump said of McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. ‘He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.’
December 22, 2015: McCain says he is ‘concerned’ over Trump’s praise of Russian president Vladimir Putin. ‘The thing that is so concerning about Mr. Trump’s compliments of Vladimir Putin is Vladimir Putin has slaughtered his own, murdered his own people, including people I knew. He has, his equipment has shot down an airliner and killed a couple hundred people.’
April 19, 2016: McCain announced he would not attend the Republican primary where Trump was due to be officially named the party’s presidential nominee.
August 1, 2016: McCain criticised Trump who had criticized the Gold Star parents of a fallen U.S army captain. He said: ‘In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents. He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States — to say nothing of entering its service. I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump’s statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates.’
October 8, 2016: Footage emerged showing Trump making misogynistic comments in 2005. McCain, and wife Cindy, said in a statement: ‘Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy
December 29, 2016: McCain associate David Kramer, an executive at the McCain Institute, met with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger and passed off British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s ‘dirty dossier’. Buzzfeed published the dossier two weeks later.
July 25, 2017: McCain rushed back to the Senate less than two weeks after brain surgery to vote ‘no’ on repealing the Affordable Care Act, which both he and Trump had campaigned on repealing.
April 17, 2018: McCain released memoir ‘The Restless Wave’ in which he made unflinching criticisms of Trump, Russia and his feelings of unease around the president.
June 20, 2018: Trump publicly blamed McCain for the Republican’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. McCain’s daughter Meghan branded the move as ‘gross’.
September 1, 2018: McCain’s funeral is held at the Washington National Cathedral. He made explicit his wish that Trump not attend.
February 7, 2019: McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain appears on the Late Show and criticizes Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for attending her father’s funeral. She said she would never squash her ‘beef’ with the Trump family.
March 2019: Trump continues to attack McCain. The president called him ‘horrible’ after the late senator’s two daughters begged for the president to leave their dad and family alone.
May 2019: It is claimed Trump wanted the USS John McCain ‘out of sight’ during his visit to Japan