Cindy McCain: Trump’s GOP ‘Not the Party My Husband and I Belonged To’

The widow of former Sen. John McCain, Cindy McCain, says President Trump’s nationalist-populist Republican Party is “not the party” she and her husband “belonged to.”

During an interview with Politico‘s Women Rule podcast, McCain said the party of Trump — centered around a pro-U.S. worker agenda — is not what she and her late husband were a part of.

“We have, on my side of the aisle, on the Republican side, we see a local party in Arizona that’s not functioning well,” McCain said. “And it’s excluding people. And it’s excluding people for the wrong reasons.”

“If you’re not walking the line, then you’re out,” she continued. “That’s just not right. That’s not the party that my husband and I belonged to.”

McCain also seemed to take subtle jabs at Trump’s way of communicating with his supporters, bypassing the establishment media and pundit class.

Trump’s ‘firewall’ against socialism in battleground state punches ticket to election

Pure Evil: 3 Charged in Water, Burning Torture and Murder of Boy, 7 – Multiple Suspects Are Trans

Watch: Rules Confusion Leads to 16-Minute Delay in MLB Game as Red Sox Accidentally Score a Run

Trump looms over blue state primary as progressive gov faces far-left challenge

Darline Graham Nordone, Ralph Norman advance to runoff in Senate race to replace Lindsey Graham

Watch: Trump’s NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya Unloads on Fauci Over Texts Showing He Thought One Thing, But Said Another to American Mothers

Zuckerberg Superyacht Accused of Ignoring Vessel’s Call for Help – Alaskan Cruise Captain Comes to the Rescue

Trump directs CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz to end Medicaid gender transition funding for minors

Suspect in off-duty Philadelphia officer’s car theft linked to killing of Penn State student: police

DOJ won’t rule out new charges for Reflecting Pool vandals as Trump calls to revisit dropped cases

Vulnerable Dem’s campaign pitch clashes with ‘radical’ voting record on top culture war issue

Man wanted in robbery tied to Penn State student’s murder now sought after off-duty cop shootout

Democrats give Senate GOP new midterm ammo in opposing federal voter ID

Syria’s death sentence for Assad puts new strain on revamped relationship with Russia

Watch: Another Talarico Clip Comes Back to Bite Him as He Characterizes Christians as ‘Causing Trouble’

“I think we’ve seen the end of men like my husband. At least for right now,” McCain said.

“The inability to even discuss issues — differing issues — it’s degenerated into name-calling and Twitter responses, and all of these things that not only do they not help the argument, but they don’t help foster good relationships with people,” McCain said.

While McCain’s husband lost the 2008 presidential election running on the decades-long Republican establishment platform of neoconservative foreign interventionism, extending the Bush-era tax cuts, and amnesty for illegal aliens, Trump swept to victory in 2016 with his “America First” agenda of a travel ban from terrorist-sponsored countries, a promise to bring U.S. troops home, and a commitment to pulling out of multilateral free trade deals and global agreements like TPP and the Paris Climate Accord.

Trump’s economic nationalist platform won him majorities in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — states not won by Republicans in years.

In a March 2019 poll by Harvard/Harris, about three-in-four U.S. voters said they support a nationalist-populist approach to trade, immigration, and foreign policy — that is, tariffs on foreign imports to protect American industries, less immigration, and less foreign intervention overseas.

Last year, former presidential candidate and columnist Pat Buchanan said McCain’s preferred part of former President George W. Bush’s party had “become a Trump party” on all the defining issues of the time.