“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing that. I have moments where I think that I just can’t do anything anymore without him. And it’s a weird place to be in so many different ways,” McCain said, using her experience after losing her father to segued into her feelings about politics. “As a daughter, I’m grieving and I’m sad. As an American, I hate this country without him in it. I know that sounds awful. I don’t hate America but I just hate it without his leadership. I’m very — I’m sad all the time. I’m struggling with that sadness and I miss him in ways that I never even could have fathomed.”
McCain took it a step further, telling Jones that she feels that the Republican party has lost its character and that it isn’t the political party that she grew up in because Trump has changed it so much. She also confirmed that she no longer calls herself a Republican since the party is “so tied up with being for Trump.”
“I call myself conservative. I mean, I’m still a member of the Republican Party, and I still vote on the Republican ticket,” McCain said. “I’m not a ‘Never Trumper.’ Trump didn’t melt my brain. I can still see the forest for the trees and it didn’t expunge all my conservative principles out of me. …Honestly, I’m just trying to survive in a lot of different ways and politically as well right now.”
