The incident involving Donald Trump’s campaign staff at Arlington National Cemetery was the last straw for Jimmy McCain, the youngest son of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview Tuesday on CNN<\/a>, McCain said that after last week’s events at the cemetery he registered as a Democrat and decided to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain, who recently returned from deployment at a military base in Jordan where three Army Reserve soldiers<\/a> were killed in January, said he changed his party affiliation to honor his father and put “country first.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I care about my family. I care about equal rights of everyone in this country. I care about all this,” McCain said. “As much as I stayed as an independent, I decided that, you know, it was time to move on and do what I believe in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain called Arlington National Cemetery \u201csacred\u201d and said three generations of his family are buried there. He called Trump\u2019s incident at Arlington a \u201cviolation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump visited the cemetery last week with relatives of victims who died in the Abbey Gate attack on Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago. According to the Army, a member of Trump\u2019s team \u201cabruptly pushed aside\u201d<\/a> a cemetery official so that campaign staff could take photos and videos in an area where they are normally prohibited. Trump\u2019s team has disputed the Army\u2019s account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cArlington Cemetery is to go and show respect for the men and women who have given their lives to this country,\u201d McCain said. \u201cWhen you make it political, you take away the respect of the people who are there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain also said that he has never forgiven Trump for calling his dad a “dummy” and that he was “not a war hero” because he had been held captive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “He\u2019s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015 comments<\/a>. “He\u2019s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren\u2019t captured.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, who never served in the military, then said: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. OK, I believe \u2014 perhaps he’s a war hero.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n John McCain was tortured and spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to McCain’s remarks on CNN, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “there has been no greater advocate” for the military than Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPresident Trump rebuilt the military after eight years of decline under Obama\/Biden, secured the largest pay raise for our troops in a decade, and became the first leader since Ronald Reagan not to start a new war and put our troops in harm\u2019s way,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has repeatedly disparaged John McCain<\/a> over the years, even after the Arizona senator’s death in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n