What it tells us that John McCain drank vodka with Hillary Clinton But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake,” he said in a statement. “The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. In one of his final public acts, he blasted Trump’s cozy summit with the Russian President in July, blasting it as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” McCain questioned why Trump was solicitous of Vladimir Putin, whom he regarded as an unreformed KGB apparatchik. More recently, as death approached, he became a strident critic of Trump, who had once said he didn’t consider the Arizona senator a war hero because he had been captured.

“The war, with its cost in lives and treasure and security, can’t be judged as anything other than a mistake, a very serious one, and I have to accept my share of the blame for it,” he wrote. McCain had supported the invasion of Iraq carried out by the Bush administration in 2003, but admitted in his memoir “The Restless Wave” that the rationale, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was wrong. Bush’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, for not taking enough troops to Iraq.Īfter Obama ended McCain’s second White House race in 2008, the senator blasted the new President’s troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, causing critics to carp that he had not yet reconciled the bitterness he felt in defeat. He defied party orthodoxy to embrace campaign finance reform, and excoriated President George W. But he was not always a reliable Republican vote, and sometimes in a career that stretched into a sixth Senate term, he confounded party leaders with his maverick stands. In a Washington career that spanned 40 years, first as a Navy Senate liaison, then as a member of the House and finally as the occupant of the Senate seat he took over from Barry Goldwater, McCain was a conservative and a foreign policy hawk. McCain's family says the Arizona senator has chosen to discontinue medical treatment for brain cancer. 25, 2017 file photo, Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., pauses before speaking to reporters during a meeting of the National Defense Authorization Act conferees, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

He was also a throwback to an earlier era when political leaders, without betraying their own ideology, were willing on occasion to cross partisan lines.įILE - In this Oct. In the end, he became a scourge of presidents rather than President himself.Īt the time of his death, he was largely an anomaly in his own party – as one of the few Republicans willing to criticize Trump and a believer in the idealized “shining city on a hill” brand of conservatism exemplified by his hero Ronald Reagan that has been dislodged by the nativist and polarizing instincts of the current President. McCain’s two losing presidential campaigns meant he fell short of the ultimate political prize, one his story once seemed to promise after he came home from Vietnam and caught the political bug. After that, he will be taken to Annapolis, Maryland, where he will be laid to rest. McCain will have a national memorial service at Washington’s National Cathedral on Saturday, according to the family statement. After that service, he will be taken to Washington on Thursday, and will lie in state in the Capitol on Friday, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. McCain will lie in state in the Arizona Capitol on Wednesday, the day McCain *would have* turned 82 years old, according to the state’s governor, Doug Ducey. Bush were asked to give eulogies, people close to both former presidents and a source close to the senator told CNN earlier this year. Former rivals and Presidents Barack Obama and George W. McCain had been planning his funeral services over the last year and his family made clear that Trump is not invited, a position that has not changed, two family friends said Saturday. The Arizona Senator repeatedly made clear that he saw Trump and his America First ideology as a departure from the values and traditions of global leadership that he saw epitomized in the United States. Trump breaks silence on McCain, tweeting his 'deepest sympathies and respect' (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images) Eric Thayer/Getty Images North America/Getty Images According to polls, the four-term incumbent Republican is enjoying a significant lead over his opponent J.D. John McCain (R-AZ) speaks during a visit to a campaign office one day before Arizona's primary election Augin Phoenix, Arizona.

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