Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in his upcoming memoir, says he is troubled by President Donald Trump's "convictions" — and is fiercely critical of the president's attacks on refugees and the media, NPR reported.
But in "The Restless Wave" — from which McCain reads in an audio excerpt posted by NPR along with its book review — McCain, who is being treated for an aggressive form of brain cancer, makes fewer mentions of Trump than of Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the first 270 pages of the book, NPR reported.
"I'm not sure what to make of President Trump's convictions," McCain writes.
"He threatened to deliberately kill the spouses and children of terrorists, implying that an atrocity of that magnitude would show the world America's toughness," he adds later.
He also attacks the president's stance on refugees, NPR reported.
"The way he speaks about them is appalling, as though welfare or terrorism were the only purposes they could have in coming to our country," he wrote.
And he condemns Trump's criticism of the media.
"His reaction to unflattering news stories, calling them 'fake news' whether they're credible or not, is copied by autocrats who want to discredit and control a free press," McCain writes.
But most of all, according to NPR, McCain is disturbed at what he sees as Trump's tolerance of Putin, implying moral equivalence when Trump said, "We have a lot of killers, too."
"It was a shameful thing to say, and so unaware of reality," McCain wrote.
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