President Donald Trump lashed out at dying Senator John McCain and Tennessee senate candidate Phil Bredesen, whom he described as a Democratic "tool," at a rally in Nashville on Tuesday night.
Trump was in Nashville to campaign for Representative Marsha Blackburn, who is expected to face off against Bredesen in the race to replace retiring senator Bob Corker.
Trump portrayed Bredesen, a former governor of Tennessee and Nashville mayor, as being at the bidding of Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
"I never heard of this guy, who is he? Who is he?" Trump said of Bredesen. "He's an absolute, total tool of Chuck—of Chuck Schumer. He's a tool of Chuck Schumer and of course the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi."
"If Bredesen were ever to get elected," Trump said, "he would do whatever Chuck and Nancy—remember the term, 'Chuck and Nancy'? They don't want the wall, they want open borders, they're more interested in taking care of criminals than they are of taking care of you—Bredesen donated a lot of money to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."
The president again launched into one of his favorite talking points, the criminal gang MS-13, whom he has described as "animals" and claims have exploited immigration legislation to enter the country.
House minority leader Pelosi has criticized Trump's use of the term "animals," though clarifying she was criticizing the president's use of the term to describe immigrants. Trump claims he was using the term to describe MS-13.
"They're not human beings. They're not human beings. And this is why we call the blood-thirsty MS-13 gang members exactly the name I used last week," Trump said.
"What was the name?" he asked.
"Animals," the crowd chanted.
The president said that efforts to scrap President Barack Obama's landmark health care bill had been frustrated by McCain, who gave a thumbs-down vote of no to defeat a repeal bill in the senate last summer, though he did not name the senator. In July, McCain was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor.
"We had it done folks, it was done, and then early in the morning somebody turned their hand in the wrong direction," Trump said. "The person that voted that way only talked repeal and replace. He campaigned on it."
Trump and McCain's feud dates back to 2015, when Trump was battling for the Republican presidential nomination and ridiculed McCain for being captured and held as a prisoner during the Vietnam war after the senator criticized him.
"He is a war hero because he was captured," Trump said. "I like people who weren't captured."
Trump has held off criticizing McCain personally in recent speeches, though according to reports in September the president had resorted to mocking the senator behind his back.
McCain has emerged as one of the strongest GOP critics of Trump, opposing the president's recent nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel. There were calls from Democrats and Republicans for White House aide Kelly Sadler to be sacked earlier in May, after Sadler said McCain's opposition to Haspel's nomination didn't matter "because he's dying anyway."
Sadler remains in her White House role.
