Sen. John McCain appeared poised to be the savior of the GOP health bill when he returned to the Capitol earlier this week despite brain cancer.
He turned out to be the bill’s executioner.
In an astonishing development early Friday, the longtime Arizona senator turned on his party and his president, joining two other GOP senators in voting “no” on Republicans’ final effort to repeal “Obamacare.”
His unexpected vote killed the bill, and also dealt what looks like a death blow to the Republican Party’s years of promises to get rid of Barack Obama’s health law.
At 80 years old in the twilight of a remarkable career, McCain lived up to his reputation as a maverick. When he walked into the well of the Senate around 1:30 a.m. and gave a thumbs-down to the legislation, Democrats briefly broke into cheers, which Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly waved his arm to quiet.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood stone-faced, his arms crossed. President Donald Trump later tweeted his disapproval, but a president who once mocked McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam apparently did not have much sway on the six-term senator when it counted.
Just days earlier, on Tuesday, McCain had buoyed GOP health efforts when he returned to the Capitol for the first time after getting diagnosed with a brain tumor, and cast a decisive vote to open debate on the GOP repeal legislation. Yet even then he forecast that his support could not be counted on, as he took the floor to lecture his colleagues, the scars from his surgery etched severely along the left side of his face.
“The Obama administration and congressional Democrats shouldn’t have forced through Congress, without any opposition support, a social and economic change as massive as Obamacare. And we shouldn’t do the same with ours,” McCain said then.
“Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act,” he added. “If this process ends in failure, which seems likely, then let’s return to regular order.”
The outcome McCain predicted came to pass — he made sure that it did. And now if Republicans want to get anything done on health care, they will have little choice but to return to regular order and turn to Democrats.
McCain was not the lone Republican senator in killing the health bill. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska ignored criticism and even threats from Trump and his administration to cast a “no” vote, as did Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate who has opposed GOP efforts all along.
McConnell’s remarks in the immediate aftermath of the vote were a bitter rebuke to all three.
“I and many of my colleagues did as we promised and voted to repeal this failed law,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, glaring toward the Republican side of the aisle. “We told our constituents we would vote that way and when the moment came, when the moment came, most of us did.”
McCain cast his “no” vote even though he campaigned for re-election last fall on promises to repeal and replace “Obamacare.” He did it despite heavy lobbying in the Senate chamber from Vice President Mike Pence, who was in lengthy and intense conversation with the senator right before the vote, as the president himself pushed for the legislation to pass.
And in perhaps the crowning irony, McCain’s vote saved a law that was the signal achievement of his political nemesis, Obama, who defeated him for the presidency in 2008.
(AP)
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8 Responses
He is the cancer. He’s a real Democrat – a RINO.
A courageous man of principle
This article gets a lot of things wrong., but the wrongest is that Barack Obama and Senator McCain are nemeses. They were opponents in one presidential election, and they had genuine policy differences. But that does not make them nemeses – it merely makes them political opponents. McCain understands the difference between opponents and nemeses, whereas the tweeter-in-chief, who spoke with utter and reprehensible disrespect about Senator McCain’s Vietnam war service
This article gets a lot of things wrong., but the wrongest is that Barack Obama and Senator McCain are nemeses. They were opponents in one presidential election, and they had genuine policy differences. But that does not make them nemeses – it merely makes them political opponents. McCain understands the difference between opponents and nemeses, whereas the tweeter-in-chief, who spoke with utter and reprehensible disrespect about Senator McCain’s Vietnam war service, is McCain’s nemesis. If Trump could be more respectful of people, he could be a leader, but Trump respects only himself, and had no sway over McCain or the other Republicans, or Democrats, who voted against the Republican health bill.
Let me emphasize: I substantially disagree with most of McCain’s political views, but once the Keating Five scandal was behind him, he has served in the Senate respectably. Trump is a thug and a bully, and like all bullies, his plans go out the window when he gets a punch in the face.
One other thing this article gets wrong: Democrats pushed through Obamacare without Republican support, but that does not make Obamacare bad policy or even tarnish its political history. Obamacare is a portion of the social safety net that all industrialized countries support for all their citizens. America is the last to join the rest of the industrialized world, but that will make America greater, and will not require any stupid hats.
The words ‘petty’ and ‘small’ come to mind. He was waiting for this opportunity Clearly being a ‘hero’ has gone to his head and he thinks everything will be forgiven no matter what he does. The good of the country means nothing to him and he personifies the Washington DC swamp. He knows he won’t be re-elected anyway so what does he have to lose?
Except for the respect of the American people.
All theatrics. This vote for a skinny Obamacare was a very clever setup by Mitch McConnell. Many of the Republican Senators would not vote for this “skinny” bill. McConnell would have looked like a weak leader (which he is) if too many Republicans voted NO. Since McCain will not be running for reelection and McConnell needed to pull his “troops” together, he devised a plan: Have McCain vote NO. Brilliant. McCain got to poke Trump in the eye, the Senators were assured that McCain would vote NO and kill this amendment, and all the Senators will look like champions. and McConnell looked like a strong leader who can unify his Senators. What a farce!!! The Republicans are becoming as phony as the DemocRATs.
I heard one pundit say that McCain actually saved many Republicans from disaster. Although polls show Obamacare is somewhat unpopular (about half of adults want it repealed), all the options the GOP tried were wildly unpopular. Republican senators who privately opposed repeal-and-replace were afraid to vote against it because it would lead to opposition in the primaries, where the right wing of the party holds sway. When McCain killed it, they secretly breathed a sign of relief. They hadn’t offended the right wing, and they hadn’t ended up with a disastrous bill that would have thrown millions off health insurance and wouldn’t have stopped premiums from increasing.
Maybe he was thinking of all the people with conditions like his whose lives would be terminated by this bill.