The White House eventually returned the flag to half-staff under pressure from veterans groups and even some of its own staffers.
When asked whether he missed an opportunity to unite the country, Trump stood by his actions.
“No, I don’t think I did at all,” he said in the interview with Bloomberg News.
“I’ve done everything that they requested and no, I don’t think I have at all,” he said.
(MORE: John McCain’s complicated relationship with President Trump)
Trump and McCain clashed in recent years, with the clearest, earliest public example coming during the presidential campaign in 2015 when Trump said McCain, who was held captive in Hanoi during the Vietnam War for five years, was “not a war hero,” adding, “I like people that weren’t captured.”
(MORE: ‘John McCain will always have our back’: Politicians pay tribute to the late senator in Arizona ceremony)
McCain crossed party lines in July 2017 to vote against the White House-backed skinny repeal of Obamacare, and Trump has brought that “thumbs down” vote up in many speeches since, slamming the senator’s actions.
(MORE: ‘It’s egregious and unforgiving’: Arizona voters weigh in on Trump’s reaction to McCain’s passing)
“We had our disagreements and they were very strong disagreements,” Trump said to Bloomberg News Thursday. “I disagreed with many of the things that I assume he believed in.”
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesMembers of the military carry the flag-draped casket of the late U.S. Senator John McCain, after arriving on a military airplane at Joint Base Andrews in Md., Aug. 30, 2018.
McCain’s body arrived in Washington Thursday after two days of memorials in his adopted home state of Arizona. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom defeated McCain in his 2000 and 2008 presidential runs, respectively, will give eulogies for McCain at his service in the National Cathedral Saturday.
Vice President Mike Pence is slated to attend but Trump is not, as McCain requested.
McCain died last Saturday of brain cancer four days before his 82nd birthday.
SLIDESHOW: America mourns Senator John McCain
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
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