'At some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty': Trump's fierce warning to McCain after charge that he's pushing 'half-baked, spurious nationalism'

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President Donald Trump issued a fierce warning to Sen. John McCain this morning after the Arizona lawmaker came at him in a speech on Monday evening.

McCain appeared to lob a charge in Trump's direction that he was promoting 'half-baked, spurious nationalism' as he accepted an award in Philadelphia.

Trump said in a radio interview with Chris Plante that McCain, who has cancer, should be careful, because he will eventually have to fight back.

'You know, I’m being very nice. I’m being very, very nice. But at some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty,' Trump said. 

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President Donald Trump issued a fierce warning to Sen. John McCain this morning after the Arizona lawmaker came at him in a speech on Monday evening

McCain did not direct his remarks at Trump on Monday evening at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were widely interpreted as a rebuke of Trump, though.

Trump and McCain identify as Republicans. They do not necessarially share the same worldview, though. Aside from their politics, the two men have tussled since Trump became a candidate for president in the summer of 2015. 

Early on in his campaign, Trump said that McCain, a former POW, is not a real war hero. 'He's a war hero because he was captured,' Trump declared.

The president has never apologized for the remark, McCain has said. 

Trump briefly changed his tune on McCain last summer when he thought the senator would deliver the death blow to Obamacare in the Senate. McCain, who had just been diagnosed with cancer, ended up voting with Democrats. 

Sen. John McCain (above) warned against the US turning toward 'half-baked, spurious nationalism' and jabbed at unnamed pushers of isolationist politics while at an event honoring the war hero's contributions 

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway slapped the critique this morning in a Fox & Friends interview. 'I just don't see that in the president's agenda or in his philosophy'

Since then, Trump has been knifing McCain in speeches, even as he's grown closer with McCain's best friend in the Senate, Republican Lindsey Graham, the architect of the health care reform bill that McCain tanked.

McCain appeared to take his revenge last night as he was awarded the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia by Joe Biden, the former vice president.

'We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil,' McCain said. 'To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership 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.'

Kellyanne Conway, the president's counselor, told Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, on Tuesday morning, before Trump was asked to comment, 'I just don't see that in the president's agenda or in his philosophy.'

'His moorings are conservative, and he is governing as a center-right president who believes that we pay too much in taxes, that we've been over-regulated, that we have not taken terrorism seriously.'  

Conway accepted that the comments were directed at the president when she was confronted with a clip of McCain's speech on Tuesday morning.  

She denied that they were an accurate representation of Trump's believes or presidency so far, asserting in her Fox & Friends interview that the 'country is safer and more prosperous under President Trump.

'People love, the stock market loves this president, and many people feel more safe and secure,' Conway said.

The senior White House official said Kilmeade and others should focus on areas that McCain and Trump agree on.

Kilmeade pointed out that Trump's terrible relationship with McCain could derail his agenda in a whole host of ways. Nevermind Obamacare, McCain could make tax reform go sideways.

'The president is talking to senators every single day,' she said, generically noting that Trump invites lawmakers to the golf course, to the White House, and calls them.

Conway said, 'We hope we can rely upon sen McCain's vote on any number of issues that Sen. McCain has promised the people of Arizona that he would do.'

That includes tax reform and counter terror efforts, she said, legislation that promotes free markets, and steps to promote prosperity and security around the globe.