June 30, 2015: Two weeks after Trump announced his presidential candidacy in a speech widely criticized for calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and drug runners, McCain put distance between himself and the celebrity billionaire. "I just disagree with his comments about the, quote, Mexicans," McCain told The Arizona Republic after he held a town-hall-style event at CAE Aviation Academy Phoenix at Mesa's Falcon Field airport."
]July 16, 2015: The New Yorker published McCain's reaction to Trump's Arizona rally. ?This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,? McCain said in the interview. ?Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.? Trump immediately fired back on Twitter, demanding that McCain apologize for the "crazies" remark and calling McCain a "dummy" for graduating last in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy. Trump called for McCain to be defeated in his primary.
July 18, 2015: The feud really exploded when Trump, at a Saturday event in Iowa, disparaged McCain's service during the Vietnam War. Trump, who did not serve in Vietnam, said McCain was ?a war hero because he was captured? and that he liked ?people that weren?t captured.? McCain, a former Navy aviator who was shot down in 1967 and held as a prisoner of war for more than five years, was defended by groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Military Officers Association of America, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Concerned Veterans for America.