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19th Aug 2020

John McCain’s widow endorses Joe Biden for president

Cindy McCain appeared at the Democratic National Convention as it formally nominated Biden

Oli Dugmore

Cindy McCain appeared at the Democratic National Convention as it formally nominated Biden

Cindy McCain, widow to former Republican presidential candidate John, joined a long line of right wingers endorsing Democrat Joe Biden at the party’s convention.

Biden enjoyed a decades-long friendship with the late John McCain after meeting in the 1970s and serving in the Senate together.

President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked McCain before and after his death, drawing particular outrage after declaring he did not like soldiers captured by the enemy and that the veteran was not a hero. McCain spent five and a half years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

After appearing in a short campaign video supporting Biden, Cindy McCain said: “My husband and Vice President Biden enjoyed a 30+ year friendship dating back to before their years serving together in the Senate, so I was honoured to accept the invitation from the Biden campaign to participate in a video celebrating their relationship.”

While McCain did not give a specific verbal endorsement to Biden, the appearance can only be interpreted as such. It is her first direct contribution to the 2020 presidential campaign.

Several other prominent Republicans also appeared at the event – former Ohio governor John Kasich, former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman and former New York representative Susan Molinari.

John McCain died in 2018 after a brain cancer diagnosis.

In 2015 Trump said McCain wasn’t a hero “because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Two years later McCain exacted a parting blow to the president, using his final, and deciding, vote as a senator to prevent the repeal of Obamacare – a piece of American healthcare legislation.

Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral, where Barack Obama read a eulogy and Joe Biden was a pallbearer, carrying the coffin through Washington’s National Cathedral.