Trump: Whoever directed USS John McCain out of sight was 'well-meaning'

Whoever directed the Navy to keep the destroyer USS John McCain out of sight during a presidential visit to Japan was “well meaning,” President Donald Trump said Thursday.

"I don't know what happened. I wasn't involved. I would not have done that," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I was very angry with John McCain because he killed health care.

I was not a big fan of John McCain in any way, shape or form. I think John McCain had a lot to getting President (George W.) Bush, a lot to do with it, to go into the Middle East which was catastrophe.

"To me, John McCain, I wasn't a fan," Trump said. "But I would never do a thing like that."

"Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn't like him. Okay? And, they were well-meaning," the president went on. "I didn't know anything about it. I would never have done that."

Trump’s remarks came as acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan denied knowing about the efforts to shield the McCain and its crew from the president’s view and as a prominent retired general and former Clinton Cabinet member called on Shanahan to resign if he did know.

“Did Acting Sec Def Shanahan know the White House gave instructions to hide the name of a US Navy warship and the sailors ID? IF SO HE SHOULD RESIGN,”

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retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a former four-star general and a director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Clinton administration.

Overnight, Shanahan

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reporters traveling with him that a Wall Street Journal report describing directions from the White House Military Office to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “was the first time I’ve heard about it.”

He later

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that he “never authorized ... any action around the movement or activity regarding that ship” and “would never dishonor the memory of a great American patriot like Sen. McCain.”

"Secretary Shanahan was not aware of the directive to move the USS John S McCain nor was he aware of the concern precipitating the directive,” Shanahan’s spokesperson, Lt. Col. Joseph Buccino, added in a statement.

But even if Shanahan was unaware of the efforts the military was undertaking to keep Trump from seeing the McCain or its crew, “he is allowing political operatives in the White House to give orders to our military forces,” McCaffrey said in another

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, calling that prospect “a very dangerous event for our democracy" and "POLITICAL MISUSE OF US ARMED FORCES."

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine