Joe Biden announces the endorsement of John McCain’s widow Cindy

Cindy McCain, the late Sen. John McCain’s widow, formally endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday, rebuking President Donald Trump for his reported comments where he called members of the military ‘losers.’ 

‘My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans foremost. There’s only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is @JoeBiden,’ she tweeted on Tuesday evening, a few hours after Biden made the surprising announcement about her endorsement during a virtual fundraiser.

Biden said Cindy McCain was endorsing him because of comments Trump was reported to have made about those in uniform, calling them ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’ in an article from The Atlantic that the president has denied.  

‘Maybe I shouldn’t say it but I’m about to go on one of these Zooms with John McCain’s wife, who is first time ever is endorsing me because of what he talks about with my son and John’s who are heroes, who served their country, you know he said they’re losers, they’re suckers,’ Biden said on the fundraising call.

Beau Biden, the late son of the former vice president, and McCains’ two sons – John Sidney McCain IV and James McCain – have all served in uniform. 

Cindy McCain, who has largely stayed out of politics after her husband’s death, told the Arizona Republic her endorsement had nothing to do with John McCain’s treatment at the hands of the president.

‘It had nothing to do with John McCain at all; it had everything to do with how I felt and how I’m feeling, especially during these tough times,’ she said, pointing to Biden’s respect for the military. 

‘That’s really important to my family,’ she said. ‘Our members of the military are not losers. They’re not losers. You call one a loser, you call all the members of the military losers, including my son.’

In her statement endorsing Biden, she noted their political differences but praised him as a fellow parent who has sent a child off to war.

‘Joe and I don’t always agree on the issues, and I know he and John certainly had some passionate arguments, but he is a good and honest man. He will lead us with dignity,’ Cindy McCain wrote on Twitter.

‘He will be a commander in chief that the finest fighting force in the history of the world can depend on, because he knows what it is like to send a child off to fight,’ she added. 

Biden responded to her tweet with one of his own: ‘Cindy — I’m deeply honored to have your support and your friendship. This election is bigger than any one political party. It requires all of us to come together as one America to restore the soul of the nation. Together, we’ll get it done.’ 

Her decision caps a years long feud between the McCain family and President Trump.

McCain was one of the most prominent, respected Republican senators in the nation but repeatedly butted heads with Trump before his death in 2018. The relationship was so bad the bickering continues to this day. Now his widow is endorsing the Democratic candidate for president. 

Biden, served in the Senate for decades with McCain and the two had overlapping interests, particularly in foreign policy. 

The men became close and Biden gave one of the eulogies at McCain’s funeral service in Arizona. 

The Biden campaign did not immediately provide specifics about Cindy McCain’s endorsement other than what Biden revealed on the call. 

Cindy McCain also cut a video for Biden at his mostly virtual convention last month. She spoke about how Biden met McCain back when he was assigned to be a military aide on a congressional trip overseas. The two became friends and the families would picnic together. 

‘They would just sit and joke. It was like a comedy show, sometimes, to watch the two of them,’ she said. 

She did not appear the convention but made sure her voice was heard.

Joe Biden said in late August he planned to visit Arizona, the McCain’s home state, after Labor Day. No visit has been announced but it would make a likely location for Cindy McCain to appear in public with Biden.

Democrats are hopeful they can pick up Arizona this year.  

Except for Bill Clinton’s win in 1996, Arizona has voted Republican since 1952. Trump had made several campaign visits to the state as has Vice President Mike Pence. Ivanka Trump was there last week.

Back in April – before Trump’s reported comments – Cindy McCain said Biden was a ‘wonderful man and a dear friend of the McCain family.’ 

‘However,’ she added that  ‘I have no intention of getting involved in presidential politics.’

Biden said her change of heart came after The Atlantic reported last month, quoting sources with knowledge of the situation, that Trump had called fallen troops ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’ 

One instance related to Trump’s scrubbed trip to the Aisne-Marne cemetery in France. The White House denied it.  

John McCain, the son of a Navy admiral was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, touted his service throughout his life. Trump mocked him in the 2016, saying ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’ 

McCain’s daughter Meghan, a Trump critic who has bashed the president on ABC’s ‘The View,’ spoke about her own preferences back in April. 

‘It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist’ to know her intentions, she said. ‘There’s one man who has made pain in my life a living hell and another man who has literally shepherded me through the grief process,’ she said.

Trump and the late senator had a long history of enmity with the president targeting McCain both before and after his death. 

In 2015, as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump said McCain – who spent five and half years in captivity during the Vietnam War – wasn’t a hero ‘because he was captured. I like people who weren´t captured.’ 

In July 2017, McCain, in his last vote as a senator, angered Trump when he gave a dramatic thumbs down to vote against repealing President Obama’s healthcare law. McCain was the deciding vote.  

When McCain died on a Saturday in 2018 after suffering from brain cancer, the Trump administration lowered the flag over the White House to half-staff but had raised it by Monday. 

There was a public outcry and the flag was eventually lowered again. Trump pointedly wasn’t invited to McCain’s funeral, which took place in Washington’s National Cathedral.

Instead McCain was eulogized by Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential race with Biden as his running mate, and former President George W. Bush, who defeated McCain in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Bill and Hillary Clinton were also in attendance as was a who’s who in the political world. 

Biden gave a eulogy for McCain at a memorial service for him in Arizona ahead of his formal state funeral. Biden was a pallbearer for McCain during the service at Washington’s National Cathedral.  

Even after his death, Trump continued to attack John McCain, going after him in March 2019 for his role in the Justice Department investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. During that contest, McCain received a copy of the unverified Christopher Steele dossier – which claimed that the Russians had blackmail material on Trump – and turned it over to then-FBI director James Comey. Later a longtime McCain aide, David Kramer, admitted he circulated it to several news organizations.

And during Trump’s May 2019 visit to Japan, the White House asked the U.S. Navy to move ‘out of sight’ the warship USS John S. McCain ahead of President Trump’s visit to the shipyard at the Yokosuka Naval Base, where several American battleships were docked.

The ship is actually named after three McCains who served in the Navy: the late senator, as well as his grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., an admiral during World War II, and his father, John S. McCain Jr., an admiral in the Vietnam era.

Trump denied any knowledge of the request. Meghan McCain, in response, called the president a ‘child’ who will not let her late father rest in peace. 

‘Trump is a child who will always be deeply threatened by the greatness of my dads incredible life. 

‘There is a lot of criticism of how much I speak about my dad, but nine months since he passed, Trump won’t let him RIP. So I have to stand up for him. It makes my grief unbearable,’ she wrote on Twitter.

Biden’s campaign has pushed a unity message and he has portrayed himself as someone who can unite the country. 

At the Democratic convention, a handful of Republicans endorsed Biden, including former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former New York Representative Susan Molinari and former GOP California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard who now runs Quibi.