McCain can say whatever he wants - it’s meaningless. He has lied too often and is too confused. His handlers probably will make the decisions.
I don’t think that is really true. The knock on McCain is not that he flip-flops or lies. The knock is that he’s not conservative enough. For example, he doesn’t lie about immigration, even though it would be tempting to do so. He says that he supports a path to citizenship. He’s pretty consistent in what he says. His positions are just too liberal for most of us. But “liberal” is relative. He’s not nearly as liberal as Hillary or Obama.