TUCSON, Ariz. — Former President Barack Obama on Friday contrasted former President Donald Trump’s character to that of the late Sen. John McCain during a packed rally at the University of Arizona.
Obama, who faced off against McCain in his successful bid for the White House in 2008, offered only kind words for his onetime political foe during his Friday remarks on behalf of the Harris-Walz campaign.
“Being here in Tucson, I’m thinking about my friend, John McCain,” said Obama, speaking to several thousand Arizonans.
“I don’t want to over-romanticize our relationship,” Obama continued, earning laughter from the crowd. “But you know what? He understood that some values transcend party. He believed in honest argument and hearing the views of other people. He didn’t demonize his political opponents.”
Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images file
Obama also praised McCain for defending him during the 2008 election when a woman told McCain during a town hall in Lakeville, Minnesota, that she didn’t trust Obama and called him an “Arab.”
“No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues,” responded McCain to the voter, generating claps from the crowd.
“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,” said Obama before going on to criticize Trump.
“When Donald Trump lies or cheats or bullies or shows utter disregard for our Constitution when he calls service members like John McCain losers because they died in battle or were captured … people make excuses for it, that it’s okay so long as their side wins,” said Obama.
McCain was taken as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict and tortured. McCain’s service earned him two Purple Hearts, along with more than a dozen other military accolades. He went on to represent the state, both in the House and the Senate, for decades.
While campaigning for president in 2015 in Ames, Iowa, Trump called McCain a “loser” in reference to his defeat to Obama before adding, “He’s not a war hero… he was a war hero because he was captured.”
Trump would go on to win Arizona in his first run for the presidency in 2016, but he would become the first Republican to lose the southwest state in 2020 since Bill Clinton won it as a Democrat in 1996.
Since Trump’s disparaging remarks, a new voting bloc has emerged in Arizona, known as “McCain Republicans.” In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris has tried to court the McCain wing of the Republican party in Arizona, complimenting him on the trail.
At a campaign rally in Chandler, Arizona, earlier this month, Harris recalled McCain saving the Affordable Care Act with a historic vote.
“It required one more vote to keep it intact, and that vote was the late, great John McCain,” Harris said in the Phoenix suburb. “A great American, a war hero: John McCain. And I’ll never forget that night.”
It was praise Obama repeated on Friday, as the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as “Obamacare,” remains in effect due to McCain’s refusal to vote to repeal it.
“Donald Trump spent his entire presidency trying to dismantle it,” said Obama.
“Thanks to John McCain, he didn’t do it,” he added to thunderous applause.