Former President Barack Obama is reflecting on the late GOP Sen. John McCain, his onetime rival for the White House, and a moment from the 2008 campaign that shows how McCain’s “character” compares with that of Republican Donald Trump.
During a Friday speech in Tucson, Arizona, Obama cautioned that he didn’t want to “over-romanticize” his relationship with McCain and noted that the senator was “conservative, to put it mildly.”
“But you know what, he understood that some values transcend party,” Obama said, while at a rally for the current Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.
“He believed in honest argument and hearing the views of other people. He didn’t demonize his political opponents.”
Obama then referred to McCain’s reply to a woman at a 2008 town hall-style event in Lakeville, Minnesota, after she said she couldn’t “trust” Obama and pushed a baseless claim that he was “an Arab.”
McCain shook his head in response to the woman, whose claim echoed a “birther” conspiracy theory about Obama’s origins.
“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about,” McCain said. Footage of the interaction made headlines at the time and has gone viral online in the years since, while also receiving backlash from those who said McCain didn’t do enough to push against the woman’s racist remarks.
After Obama recounted the woman’s 2008 comments at Friday’s rally, he said that McCain “shut it down.”
“He knew that if we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy can’t work. The man had character,” Obama said.
He later added: “One of the most disturbing things about this election and Donald Trump’s rise in politics is how we seem to have set aside the values that people like a John McCain stood for. Values we were taught.”