Donald Trump, who over the weekend said he liked "people who weren't captured," should apologize to American prisoners of war and their families, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., urged on Monday.

The television personality and Republican presidential candidate does not owe him an apology personally, the Arizona senator and retired Navy captain noted, according to USA Today, but Trump should not have denigrated the memory of others who fell into enemy hands in Vietnam and other conflicts.

"I think he may owe an apology to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who have undergone the prison experience in serving their country," McCain told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," insisting he was "not a hero."

McCain, the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee, was shot down by a missile over Hanoi as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War. Arrested by North Vietnamese forces, the badly wounded sailor was subsequently beaten and interrogated, and his injuries were only treated once his captors discovered that his father was a top U.S. admiral.

A prisoner of war for five and a half years, McCain was brutally tortured but refused to sign "confessions" and other propaganda statements. For his service, he was awarded with a Silver Star for gallantry in action. Still, Trump insisted at the the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, that the senator was "not a war hero," Politico noted.

"He was a war hero because he was captured," said Trump, who, having avoided the Vietnam draft due to a 1968 medical deferment, never served in the armed forces. "I like people who weren't captured."

The "Apprentice" star said on Monday he had no plans to apologize, adding he was "very disappointed in John McCain because the vets are horribly treated in this country," USA Today noted.

Top Republicans, including presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, however, harshly criticized Trump's comments, saying they demonstrate that the real-estate mogul is unfit to serve as commander-in-chief.