Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) predicted that the Republican bill to roll back Obamacare would likely fail, adding to growing signs that the bill is in trouble, Reuters reports.
Said McCain: “My view is that it’s probably going to be dead.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) predicted that the Republican bill to roll back Obamacare would likely fail, adding to growing signs that the bill is in trouble, Reuters reports.
Said McCain: “My view is that it’s probably going to be dead.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he would not support calls to repeal Obamacare now and replace it at a later date, KTAR reports.
Said McCain: “I fear we may fall under the trap of repealing and not replacing and that would be bad for America.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) walked back earlier comments that the controversy surrounding investigations into potential collusion between associates of President Trump and the Russian government had reached “Watergate size and scale,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said McCain: “Now the question is, how is it handled? Is it handled the way Watergate was where it’s drip, drip, drip, every day more, or do we handle it like the—like Ronald Reagan handled Iran Contra? It was a scandal. He fired people. He went on national television and said, we made mistakes, we did wrong and we’re not going to do it again and the American people let him move forward.”
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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he was “almost speechless” over comments that President Trump reportedly made to Russian officials describing fired FBI Director James Comey as “a real nutjob,” Politico reports.
Said McCain: “I don’t know how to read it except that, I’m almost speechless. I don’t know why someone would say something like that.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) slammed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a New York Times op-ed, accusing the nation’s chief diplomat of adopting a foreign policy that abandons both U.S. values and victims of oppression around the world, Politico reports.
McCain’s op-ed came in response to remarks Tillerson delivered last week to State Department employees, in which he said that “in some circumstances if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can’t achieve our national security goals.”
“Tillerson’s boss, President Donald Trump, has made a habit of offering warm words for dictators and political strongmen from around the world, including Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is angry that the “nuclear option” will not be avoided in the fight over Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, the Washington Post reports.
“He thinks senators who view this as a good step are, well, not fully in command of their faculties.”
Said McCain: “Idiot, whoever says that is a stupid idiot, who has not been here and seen what I’ve been through and how we were able to avoid that on several occasions. And they are stupid and they’ve deceived their voters because they are so stupid.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told Bloomberg that he’s trying to reach a “long-term” deal to allow confirmation while saving the minority party’s ability to block future high court nominations.
Said McCain: “There’s always hope, because maybe we’ll recognize the damage that’s been done to the institution and the American people.”
However, he added: “I’ll have conversations but I’m not optimistic.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN President Trump’s and his team’s ties to Russia “clearly cries out for an investigation.”
Said McCain: “There’s a lot of aspects with this whole relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin that requires further scrutiny, and so far I don’t think the American people have gotten all the answers. In fact, I think there’s a lot of shoes to drop from this centipede.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) demanded the release of any evidence backing up President Trump’s claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower in the run-up to the presidential election, “blasting the White House’s refusal to answer additional questions about the matter,” Politico reports.
Said McCain: “I haven’t seen anything like this… This is unprecedented. I have never heard of a president of the United States accusing his predecessor or any other president of the United States of violating the law.”
Sen. Rand Paul blasted Sen. John McCain over his criticism of President Trump, saying the nation is “lucky” the Arizona senator is not president considering his foreign policy views, ABC News reports.
Said Paul: “Everything that he says about the president is colored by his own personal dispute he has got running with President Trump [over foreign policy], and it should be taken with a grain of salt because John McCain is the guy that has advocated for war everywhere. He would bankrupt the nation.”
He added: “Actually we’re very lucky John McCain is not in charge because I think we would be in perpetual war.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) slammed President Trump’s attacks on the media this week by noting dictators “get started by suppressing free press,” CNN reports.
“It was a startling observation from a sitting member of Congress against the President of the United States, especially considering McCain is a member of Trump’s party.”
Said McCain: “If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”
“John McCain is increasingly mad as hell about President Trump. And on Friday, he went after Trump — hard,” the Washington Post reports.
“During a speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the Republican senator from Arizona delivered a pointed and striking point-by-point takedown of Trump’s worldview and brand of nationalism. McCain didn’t mention Trump’s name once, but he didn’t have to.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced that he will not support Rep. Mick Mulvaney’s (R-SC) nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget, The Hill reports.
President Trump tore into Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Twitter, saying McCain’s concerns with a raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL “emboldens the enemy.”
Said Trump: “Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!”
He added: “He’s been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in – bogged down in conflict all over the place.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called the recent U.S. raid in Yemen a “failure” following a classified briefing on the operation, which ended in the death of a Navy SEAL and an unconfirmed number of civilians, BuzzFeed reports.
McCain said that the military’s decision to continue the mission despite “significant opposition” and the enemy being tipped off “was one of the aspects of this that made it — turned it into a failure.”
McCain’s characterization stands in stark contrast to that of the White House, which is calling the operation a success.
Said White House press secretary Sean Spicer: “The raid that was conducted in Yemen was an intelligence gathering raid. It was highly successful. It achieved the purpose it was going to get, save the loss of life that we suffered and the injuries that occurred.”
Sen. John McCain said that Mexico paying for President Donald Trump’s oft-promised border wall is “not a viable option,” Politico reports.
“McCain also voiced broader skepticism of the proposal, which critics — both conservative and liberal — have argued would be extraordinarily expensive but do little to solve problems along the border.”
President Donald Trump lashed out at Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for publicly second-guessing his executive order on refugees, calling them “weak on immigration” and “looking to start World War III,” Politico reports.
Playbook: “The Arizona Republican has been relishing his role as Trump’s tormentor. Over the past several days, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman has publicly broken with Trump over his voter fraud claims and reports that Trump was considering reinstating torture and panned his OMB pick over military spending and votes to shut down the government. And while some of his colleagues are giving Trump latitude on building a wall on the Mexico border, McCain said Thursday he won’t support it without seeing more details and continues to have concerns with Trump’s relationship with Putin.”
“Not a lot of Republicans are willing to go toe to toe with Trump for fear they’ll end up battered and bullied by the president and his loyal army of followers. But the 80-year-old former Republican presidential nominee just got re-elected. He clearly doesn’t like Trump or his policies and isn’t afraid to tell everyone about it.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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