Donald Trump’s campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery last week, where a staffer reportedly shoved a woman who tried to prevent them from filming in a restrict area, was a “violation,” late-GOP Sen. John McCain’s son, 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain, told CNN.
“It just blows me away,” McCain told CNN in regard to Trump’s entourage filming a campaign video on soldiers’ graves. McCain enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17 and is now an intelligence officer in the 158th Infantry Regiment.
“These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice,” McCain, who has served in the military for 17 years now, told CNN on Tuesday. “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.”
Although the former president attacked McCain’s father before, calling him a “loser” and claiming he was “not a war hero” since he was captured in Vietnam, Jimmy McCain said he felt like receiving such remarks were typical for politics. However, what transpired in Arlington struck him differently.
“It was a violation,” McCain told CNN. “Many of these men and women, who served their country, chose to do something greater than themselves. They woke up one morning, they signed on the dotted line, they put their right hand up, and they chose to serve their country. And that’s an experience that Donald Trump has not had. And I think that might be something that he thinks about a lot.”
McCain, who previously backed his father’s party, said he has changed his voter registration from independent to Democrat as he plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November saying he “would get involved in any way I could” to help her campaign.