During a Sunday interview Daily Beast writer Matt Lewis used the death of Sen. John McCain as a metaphor for the death of the Republican Party.

CNN host Ana Cabrera called it the “summer from hell” for President Donald Trump. She listed the Helsinki summit, the lack of movement on North Korea denuclearization, children in cages at the border, Michel Cohen pleaded guilty, Paul Manafort was found guilty, Scott Pruitt was finally ousted for corruption, tariffs have turned farmers and others against Trump and John McCain’s passing made Trump look like a heartless child.

ADVERTISEMENT

In an interview with Cabrera, Lewis explained that both McCain and Charles Krauthammer both died this summer, taking traditional Reaganism along with them.

“I talk about Charles Krauthammer, the great consecutive columnist who died in June, at the beginning of the summer,” Lewis began. “Of course, now John McCain at the end of this summer. And I do think it’s sort of a turning of the page. Krauthammer and John McCain both have been — one of them as a statesman, one as an opinion leader, but they were both very active in the conservative movement, in the Republican Party from the Vietnam era, through the Reagan era, through 9/11 and onward.”

He went on to say that the brand of conservatism is “out of vogue” and it is “somewhat symbolic as we head into the cold of winter right now.” For the Republican Party, Lewis explained it’s no longer springtime.

Lewis continued, noting that for the last decade there has been a “reckoning” for the GOP. Now, the GOP has become the Party of Trump.

Despite the speeches from George W. Bush, Meghan McCain and Barack Obama advocating bipartisan patriotism, Lewis doesn’t see anything changing in the “partisanship,” “rancor,” “bitterness and the polarization.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Watch the full interview below: