Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Monday night unleashed thinly veiled critiques apparently aimed at President Donald Trump during his speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
McCain had just been awarded the Liberty Medal by former Vice President Joe Biden, who is chairman of the Constitution Center, the Washington Post reported.
"To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of Earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history," McCain said.
The "spurious nationalism" insult was taken as a shot at Trump's "America First" agenda.
"We live in a land made of ideas, not blood and soil," McCain said. "We are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad."
"We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent," he added. "We wouldn't deserve to."
Trump has frequently attacked McCain for voting against a Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, including the day of McCain's speech.