Donald Trump Hurt By McCain Funeral Snub Because ‘He’s Not The Center Of Attention,’ Author Tells ‘WaPo’
After President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim a “52 percent overall” approval rating just one day after Senator John McCain’s death and hours after a gunman opened fire at a video game tournament in Florida, many of his followers pointed out how he may be the only U.S. president not to be invited to two funerals of prominent political figures and one royal wedding. That led Washington Post writer Ashley Parker to refer to Trump as “president non grata” and one of her interview subjects for her newly published piece to speculate on why McCain’s refusal to invite Trump to his funeral might be getting on his nerves.
On Tuesday, Parker published an opinion piece on the Washington Post where she noted how McCain specified shortly before his death that Trump should not be invited to his funeral, and how Trump reportedly chose not to issue a statement where he would have honored the late senator as a “hero.” This, according to Parker, underscores Trump’s frequent position as a “pariah” who isn’t allowed to, or isn’t willing to show proper respect to recently deceased political figures or perform other “basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency.”
Aside from the moments when he was not invited to funerals or other high-profile events for one reason or another, the Washington Post piece also focused on how Trump seems to express pride in the rejection of “elites.” According to Everything Trump Touches Dies author and former Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who was one of several people interviewed for Parker’s Washington Post article, it often boils down to Trump’s penchant for politically incorrect comments and actions, and how his supporters love him for such “transgressive” behavior.
White House staff hate the "petty" way Trump handled McCain's death, Rick Wilson reveals https://t.co/tCetGSYK2e pic.twitter.com/Q1LD2lGKad
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) August 28, 2018
Regarding how Donald Trump was not invited to John McCain’s funeral, Wilson opined that the president might be hurting from the snub because the flurry of McCain-related reports has taken a lot of attention away from him.
“You know what is making Donald Trump the craziest right now is he’s not the center of attention. He’s crawling the damn walls because they’re running story after story on John McCain and he hates it because he’s not the center of attention.”
Separately, Wilson told CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday that Trump acted like a “petulant child” when he re-raised the American flag over the White House less than 48 hours after McCain’s passing and also waited until Monday to issue a more detailed statement recognizing the Republican senator’s many contributions.
“It is beneath the office of the president. It is beneath the dignity of this country. And I guess we’re not shocked by it anymore, but it was so small and so petty and so trifling that even folks in the White House were reaching out to me and saying how much they hated what he was doing,” Wilson said, as quoted by Mediaite.
