President Donald Trump refused to allow the release of a White House statement praising the heroism and life of Sen. John McCain, who died from brain cancer on Saturday, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Trump instead issued a tweet expressing sympathies to McCain’s family but did not include any kind words for the Arizona Republican.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Chief of Staff John Kelly and others in the White House pressed for an official statement that gave the decorated Vietnam War POW praise for his military and Senate service and called him a “hero,” according to aides in the White House.

Such a statement was presented to Trump for approval, but was rejected by the president.

“At a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero,” Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump’s legal team and a longtime Republican strategist told the Post, calling the president’s reaction “atrocious.”

Current and former White House aides said Trump continued to believe that McCain was not a war hero, refusing to apologize for his 2015 comment stating that and in which he also said, “I like people that weren’t captured.”

As tributes poured in for McCain from across the nation and around the world, the president spent much of Sunday at his golf course in Virginia and did not say a word publicly.