Former vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin criticized the McCain family for "disinviting" her and others to his funeral last year, calling it "a gut punch" and "embarrassing."
Palin, speaking on "Good Morning Britain" on Monday, said she was "surprised to be publicly disinvited to the funeral."
“I think that that was an unnecessary step. They didn’t have to embarrass me and embarrass others and it wasn’t just me. Other good people in our campaign back then in 2008, who were very, very loyal to Sen. McCain, who worked with him and for him for many, many years and they weren’t invited to the funeral,” she said.
“It was so unnecessary … It was kind of a gut punch,” Palin said.
McCain died last August of brain cancer.
Palin was McCain's running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign against then-Sen. Barack Obama. In his book "The Restless Wave," he said he regretted picking Palin as a running mate and not his friend, former Sen. Joe Lieberman.
In the interview, Palin accused McCain’s campaign workers of throwing her under the bus.
"They were looking for someone to blame for their really crappy type of campaign that they ran and I was a scapegoat," she said.
She said she doesn’t believe McCain thought it was a mistake to have her as his running mate.
She also said McCain never directly expressed any disappointment to her over the failed campaign and that the McCain and Palin family had a good relationship for years.
And she pointedly addressed recent and ongoing criticism by President Donald Trump and other Republicans about him.
“I do believe that once a person is resting in peace like the dearly departed Sen. McCain is, I think people can kind of chill on the criticism of such a man and just kind of zip it and move on,” she said.
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