Biden defends McCain after report about obscuring namesake ship

Former Vice President Joe Biden defended the late Sen. John McCain Thursday following a report that White House officials wanted a warship named after McCain "out of sight" ahead of President Donald Trump's visit to Japan over Memorial Day weekend.

"John McCain was a war hero, should be treated as a war hero," Biden told reporters during a stop in Delaware. "Anything less than that is beneath anyone who doesn't treat him that way."

Tensions between Trump and Biden have been high over the past several weeks, since Biden jumped into the 2020 presidential race, becoming the front-runner in a crowded Democratic field seeking to oust Trump from the Oval Office. The former vice president's comments are a seeming dig at Trump, who has continued to criticize McCain even after his death last year.

Trump on Thursday morning said that "well-meaning" aides tried to shield him from the USS John S. McCain — named for the late GOP senator, as well as his father and grandfather — but that he did not issue the directive.

Somebody did it because they thought I didn't like him, OK?" Trump told reporters at the White House. "And they were well-meaning, I will say ... I didn't know anything about it; I would never have done that."

He added that aides "thought they were doing me a favor because they know I am not a fan of John McCain."

Officials reportedly wanted the warship to be kept "out of sight" during Trump's visit to Japan, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The president gave a speech on Memorial Day on a nearby ship.

Biden wasn't the only elder Democratic statesman to take issue with the reported directive. Leon Panetta, former Defense secretary under President Barack Obama and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he was dumbfounded by the reported effort by the White House to shield Trump from the name McCain.

“There’s a lack of grownups in the White House -- from the top down,” Panetta told USA TODAY with a laugh. “To let an issue like this even get any attention is just something I can’t imagine in any other administration. A chief of staff would at least say, ‘Stop it.’”

Earlier Thursday the acting defense secretary said he had asked his chief of staff to look into the reported directive to obscure the ship.

'We loved each other, but we argued like the devil'

Trump and McCain clashed on an array of issues, including health care and the president's approach to foreign policy.

Biden and McCain, by contrast, were longtime friends.

But, Thursday Biden said while he and McCain were friends, the two didn't always see eye to eye.

"We loved each other but we argued like the devil," he said.

The relationship between the Arizona Republican and the Delaware Democrat began in the 1970s. When Biden was a freshman senator on he Senate Foreign Relations Committee, McCain was the Navy Senate liaison. The two ended up traveling across the globe together as a result of their positions.

The two lawmakers' bond continued throughout their time in the Senate together.

Biden continued to stand with McCain following his brain cancer diagnosis, the same type of cancer that claimed Biden's eldest son, Beau.

In late 2017, Biden consoled Meghan McCain, John McCain's daughter, on ABC's "The View."

"I think about Beau a lot," McCain, a host on the program, told Biden at the time. "This doesn't get easier but you cultivate the tools to work with this and live with this. I know you and your family have been through tragedy I couldn't conceive of. What would you tell people?"

Biden recalled his friendship with Sen. McCain, who would lose his battle with brain cancer in 2018, and noted that the Arizona maverick was always willing to help Biden in whatever bind he was in.

On the program, Biden told Meghan McCain: "There is hope and if anybody can make it,  your dad can.”

Sen. McCain died on August 25, 2018.

Biden was one of the few lawmakers to give a eulogy at the late senator's funeral.

“My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain," Biden began his eulogy during services for McCain in Phoenix, Arizona.

Biden went on to talk about how McCain put country above all else, and conducted himself with integrity, becoming a part of the American narrative.

"I know John said he hoped he played a small part in that story," Biden concluded his eulogy. "John, you did much more than that, my friend. To paraphrase Shakespeare, 'we shall not see his like again.'"