Kelli Ward suggested McCain cancer announcement was timed to deflect from her campaign

Conservative Senate candidate Kelli Ward of Arizona is facing backlash for seeming to suggest that Senator John McCain’s family released a statement about his cancer treatments ending on Friday in order to deflect attention away from her campaign.

Brahm Resnik with Phoenix’s KPNX TV tweeted a screenshot of a Facebook thread where a person, who has been identified as a staffer for Ward, questioned the timing of McCain’s statement “on the kickoff day of Kelli Ward’s bus tour,” asking “if it was a plan to take media attention off her campaign.”

The staffer added, “I’m not saying it was on purpose but it’s quite interesting.”

Ward’s response in the thread was “I think they wanted to have a particular narrative that they hope is negative to me.”

Resnik blasted the comments by adding the caption, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

He also provided his interpretation of their dialogue by writing, “@kelliwardaz staffer: I wonder if John McCain’s trying to steal attention from Ward’s bus tour by announcing his life is coming to an end. Ward: Yup, it’s all about me.”

And Aaron Borders, a prominent local Republican who is supporting Ward’s primary race opponent U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, told The Arizona Republic of the comments, “It’s wildly inappropriate. It’s classless. It’s not decent … it’s very narcissistic.”

Ward has since hit back at her critics, writing on Facebook in a separate post: “The Left is hateful, foul-mouthed, and easily misled….I’ll repost my condolences for Mr. McCain’s family again – please take note of the trolling comments by people who buy into #FakeNews & political smears.”