Even Donald Trump’s regular cheerleaders on “Fox and Friends” are criticising his recent attacks on senator John McCain, an American war hero who died last year.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade went after Mr Trump on Thursday for the jabs, saying that the president diverted attention away from his accomplishments in order to unearth his feud with a dead man.

“The problem is he swapped his own message by going after George Conway and in that speech inexplicably segueing to go after John McCain,” Mr Kilmeade said Thursday morning, reviewing a speech Mr Trump made in Ohio where he attacked the late senator and the husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

He continued: “It makes absolutely no sense.”

During his speech in Lima, Ohio, Mr Trump doubled down on his recent attacks on Mr McCain, and complained that he was not thanked for the dead senator’s funeral, which the president said he had to “approve”.

I gave him “the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this. I didn’t get ‘thank you,’” he said.

The comments were quickly condemned, with several Republican politicians pushing back.

Mr Kilmeade, for his part, noted that McCain had frequently sparred with presidents and politicians throughout his long tenure in Washington. That included a testy relationship with the past two presidents — one a democrat and the other a republican.

The “Fox and Friends” co-host, whose show the president is known to watch regularly, did note that Mr McCain had delivered a decisive vote against the president’s effort to kill the Affordable Care Act.

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