Sen. Mitt Romney issues strong rebuke to Trump after the president criticized the late Sen. John McCain in Twitter tirade

Sen. Mitt Romney offered a strong rebuke to President Donald Trump two days after the president criticized the late Sen. John McCain in a series of tweets.

In his own tweet, Romney said he couldn’t understand why the president would “once again disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain.” He went on to describe McCain as "heroic, courageous, patriotic, honorable, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, empathetic and driven by duty to family, country and God.”

McCain died in August at the age of 81 after a battle with brain cancer.

In a series of tweets sent from the president in the early morning of March 17, Trump made allegations that McCain sent a “fake dossier” to both the FBI and media about Trump’s ties to Russia. He also criticized McCain for voting against the repeal of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, also known as the Affordable Care Act.

Later, when asked to explain the tweets by reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the visiting president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, Trump said “I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.”

Meghan McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain, responded to Trump’s tweet, saying “No one will ever love you the way they loved my father...”