Sen. John McCain (National Guard)

On Friday Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned over his report into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia to Attorney General Bill Barr. And this explains President Donald Trump’s reignited war with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Last week, I watched Trump lie and smear the name of a dead war hero. But I didn’t comment on it. By now, I’ve figured out Trump’s strategy. Apart from using gaslighting and propaganda to confuse the American people, he also practices distraction.

When you write about Trump, you can’t cover everything he says because half of it’s lies. Much of what he says is designed to throw reporters off the story. He’s also not beyond creating a scandal to distract from a bigger scandal. For example, if the media has a story about payments to Stormy Daniels, he tweets about MS-13 chopping up white women.

He wanted people writing about his awful behavior towards McCain because he knew the Mueller report was coming out and was scared of what it might reveal.

Trump’s strategy worked for a while. Many pundits and political watchers wondered why he was beefing with a dead man — and losing.

During his lie-fest, he claimed he allowed McCain to have a state funeral, accused him of being weak on veterans issues and also accused the late senator of being last in his class. Bear in mind, Trump ordered his flunky, Michael Cohen, to bury his academic records.

When you write about Trump, you can’t cover everything he says because half of it’s lies. Much of what he says is designed to throw reporters off the story. He’s also not beyond creating a scandal to distract from a bigger scandal. For example, if the media has a story about payments to Stormy Daniels, he tweets about MS-13 chopping up white women.

His onslaught against McCain was so bad some Republicans complained, according to the Hill.

“Mr. President, seriously stop talking about Senator McCain,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas,) a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Iraq. “There is just no reason to be talking about Senator McCain after he has passed. He is not your political enemy Mr. President.”

And for that, he was attacked by Cult 45 who threatened to make him a one-term congressman. Just think about that, Crenshaw was attacked for urging the president to do the honorable thing.

Alternet gathered some of the tweets attacking Crenshaw.

Twitter @Steph93065 told Crenshaw to shut his mouth and accused him of “trashing our president.” The other responses were even more vicious and laden with four-letter words.

Trump’s reprehensible behavior also subjected the still-grieving McCain family to abuse. Cindy McCain, the late senator’s wife, shared a message revealing the vitriol Trump had unleashed on her family. A writer called the late senator “a traitorous piece of warmongering s — .”

The writer also attacked Meghan McCain, co-host of “The View.”

“Hope your Mrs. Piggy looking daughter chokes to death on the next burger,” said the writer.

However, this Trump tweet is very telling: “Millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain!” said the president.

Meghan McCain’s response was, “He will never be a great man.”

Trump doesn’t care who he hurts to get attention. It’s no wonder George Conway, husband of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, has started tweeting links to medical definitions of Trump’s mental issues. One of them was a link to the definition of narcissistic personality disorder. Conway’s tweet, cribbed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, describes narcissistic personality disorder as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior,) need for admiration and lack of empathy …”

However, all of Trump’s media spin came to nothing. The Mueller report was delivered to Barr on Friday, and now the cable news channels are talking about it round the clock.

Trump’s media war with a dead man only made him and his supporters look deplorable. Turns out Hillary Clinton was pretty accurate with that assessment.