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 admin asks Spanberger, Virginia officials not release illegal charged with groping high school girls

Trump voter ID push faces Senate test as GOP rebels threaten to sink bill

Viktor Orban faces uphill battle to hold leadership as opposition hits him on Russia ties and accusations of corruption

Where things stand with Iran war in its third week

Minnesota bill would ban warrants allowing police to collect data from devices near a crime scene

Jasmine Crockett defends her security guard who was killed in police standoff, wanted for impersonating cop

ABC News Left Out Crucial Context In Story About Iran Drone Threat To California

Anti-ICE agitators blow cover in Boston, allowing child rape suspect to evade arrest for weeks

Utah children’s book author Kouri Richins convicted in husband’s murder

Search for missing retired Air Force general enters third week as investigators probe new clues

Trump questions Newsom’s fitness for White House, citing his dyslexia

Court allows DOJ to proceed with appeal over law firm executive orders

Trump lawyer in Jack Smith case draws conservative backing after DOJ praise rattles ‘elite’ legal conference

Illegal immigrant held on ICE detainer in Charlotte murder as disturbing details surface

Vance accuses media of trying to ‘drive a wedge’ between him and Trump over Iran

“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.