Joe Scarborough paid tribute to Sen. John McCain on Thursday, while taking a not-so-subtle swipe at President Donald Trump.
The "Morning Joe" co-host described McCain, who is suffering from brain cancer, as a "maverick" individual who has "always been tough" and isn't afraid to speak his mind across party lines.
"When somebody started to question Barack Obama's patriotism and his faith in the 2008 campaign, John McCain went over and politely said, 'Barack Obama is a good man, he is a good husband, he is a good father, we just have different views of governing and that's why I am running,"' Scarborough said on his MSNBC show.
He then added in an unmistakable dig at Trump: "My God what we would do to have a leader like that in the White House today."
Scarborough and his co-host and fiancée Mika Brzezinski, once close friends with the commander in chief have been at each other's throats in recent months.
In a column for The Washington Post this week, Scarborough called the president "hopelessly ill-informed" and labeling him a reality star who "brought his gaudy circus act to Washington."
"President Trump's Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution," Scarborough added.
McCain, 80, is said to have the same kind of aggressive brain cancer that felled former Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Vice President Joe Biden's eldest son, Beau.
The cancerous tumor was found after McCain underwent surgery remove a blood clot above his left eye last week at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.
McCain has been a U.S. senator since 1987 and is a decorated Vietnam War hero who also was a prisoner of war for 5-and-a-half years.
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