(2018-08-28) — After days of sending mixed signals about the passing of the late Sen. John McCain, President Trump today suggested that the outpouring of positive McCain remembrances on TV and social media have come for just one reason.

“We only mourn McCain because he died,” Trump told a reporter. “I like people who don’t die. OK? I hate to tell you.”

The remark echoed Trump’s 2016 campaign quip that McCain is “only a war hero because he got captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Even though ABC reporter Jonathan Karl really wanted him to, the president has until now refused to comment about his former bitter rival — the man who almost single-handedly blocked the repeal of Obamacare.

“Let’s be honest,” Trump said today. “All this praise, the tributes, lowering the flag, the big viewing in the Capitol Rotunda — none of this would be happening if John McCain were still alive. It seems like a lot of reversionist history to me.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, acknowledging the fraught relationship between the two Republican politicians, said, “Some men will carry a grudge against another man until his rival is in the grave. President Trump doesn’t give up that easy.”