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On Friday, after blaming conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the Obama administration's mishandling of military death benefits, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Cruz simply did not represent the GOP. Fox News host Martha MacCallum mentioned that Cruz would be visiting President Barack Obama along with other Republican senators like Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) at the White House on Friday. She asked McCain, "How do you feel about him representing you there?" In response, McCain smirked before saying, "First of of all, Martha, please, he's not representing us there." Also in the interview,...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) channeled his inner-maverick Friday during an appearance on Fox News Channel, repeatedly reminding the conservative network that the government shutdown was brought about by the quixotic effort to halt the Affordable Care Act. When anchor Martha MacCallum asked him about the White House's handling of the suspension of death benefits to military families, McCain said that while the administration deserves blame it was a GOP-induced shutdown that caused the problem in the first place.

Sen. John McCain is talking with Democrats about a joint effort to require outside groups that have spent millions of dollars on this year’s elections to disclose their donors. McCain (R-Ariz.), once Congress’s leading champion of campaign finance reform, has kept a low profile on the issue in recent years. He raised the ire of many Republicans a decade ago for pushing comprehensive reform, and many Republicans still held it against him during his 2008 presidential campaign.

You’ll have to watch this to believe it. In a harsh criticism of House Republicans and think tanks critical of Rep. John Boehner’s plan to raise the debt limit, the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee, who chose Tea Party darling Sarah Palin for VP, said about this about a faction of his own party: Granted, Sen. McCain was quoting a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this morning when he recited this passage: “The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and...

Republican Senator John McCain today ripped into the current crop of GOP candidates, accusing them of breaking with the party's traditions by preaching 'isolationism.' Mr McCain, the Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential elections, said if former President Ronald Reagan were still alive he would have been disappointed in last week's Republican presidential debate in which candidates voiced impatience with U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya. Mr McCain told ABC's This Week: 'He would be saying: "That's not the Republican Party of the 20th century, and now the 21st century. That is not the Republican Party that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator insisted Thursday. Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, also rejected the argument that any form of torture is critical to U.S. success in the fight against terrorism.

National Democrats have asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Arizona Sen. John McCain violated campaign finance laws when his campaign paid to run ads for Republican House candidates in Arizona — charges the McCain campaign said are “baseless.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a FEC complaint Tuesday against McCain and his campaign committee, Friends of John McCain, because of recent ads backing Ruth McClung, the GOP nominee in Arizona’s 7th District, and Jesse Kelly, who is running in the 8th District. The complaint also asks the FEC to investigate whether McClung, Kelly and their respective campaign committees...

Exclusive: Meghan McCain Writes that Palin Brought 'Drama, Stress... Panic' to Campaign Sen. John McCain's Daughter: Sarah Palin's Rise Was 'Too Fast,' 'Too Easy' Aug. 31, 2010— For the first time since the end of her father's 2008 presidential bid, Sen. John McCain's daughter Meghan McCain spoke out about Sarah Palin, writing in a new book that Palin brought "drama, stress, complications, panic and loads of uncertainty" to the losing campaign. Though she writes that during the campaign she wondered if the loss "was Sarah Palin's fault," McCain told "Good Morning America" today in an exclusive interview that Palin was...

PHOENIX (AP) - John McCain's Republican primary challenger suggests the country would be worse off had McCain won the 2008 presidential election. (snip) Responding to a question from the audience at a Phoenix tea party meeting Monday, Hayworth says he doesn't like President Barack Obama, but a moderate Republican would be even worse than the Democrat. Speaking of the Arizona senator, Hayworth says: "I think the last thing we needed was a progressive trying to wear a Republican cloth coat as president of the United States."

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Sen. John McCain hasn't always talked tough on immigration. That haunted his presidential ambitions, and now his political survival hinges on whether he can show that his conversion is genuine. It hasn't been easy. Boycotts, vigils and a legal fight over the state's attempted crackdown on illegal immigrants have kept voters attuned to each nuance in his run for re-election. "Since 2007, I've said we have to secure the border first. I said it in 2008 and 2009 and 2010," McCain told 120 people at a town hall meeting in suburban Phoenix. Leaning against the back wall...

PHOENIX -- Sen. John McCain said the federal government has only itself to blame for Arizona's tough new proposals on immigration enforcement, now awaiting Gov. Jan Brewer's signature. "The state of Arizona is acting and doing what it feels it needs to do in light of the fact that the federal government is not fulfilling its fundamental responsibility -- to secure our borders," McCain said Monday during an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would allow the President to imprison an unlimited number of American citizens (as well as foreigners) indefinitely without trial. Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent.” The bill, which has eight cosponsors, explicitly names U.S. citizens as among those who can be detained indefinitely without trial: An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent...

Until last night, when I watched the Republican debate, I had no idea how much John McCain dislikes me and just about everybody else but Rudy Giuliani, who if you believe The New York Times is a pretty good hater himself. As I watched McCain and Governor Romney go at it during the debate at the Reagan Library I was struck by the huge gap that separates McCain -- whose contempt for his fellow humans is patently obvious -- and my dad, Ronald Reagan, who had nothing but the deepest affection and respect for the American people. The feeling is...

(snip) His loathing for McCain has a long history. “I don’t like him,” Tancredo said. “He is not a very pleasant person. He is nasty, mean; the skin of an onion would look deep compared to his. He has a short fuse, he is almost peculiarly unstable.” He still remembers his first encounter with the senator from Arizona. In 1999, Tancredo was elected to the House with 54 percent of the votes in his Colorado district. “When you win with less than 55 percent of the vote, you are seen as vulnerable. So then the party will go out to...

Go after illegal use of steroids Sen. McCain. But once you enact a bill, one thing always leads to another in Washington. The vitamins and supplements will most definitely be affected. But more importantly, we, the people who depend on them will be affected.

I figured his spokesmen would keep hammering the Birther thing, but a full-blown ad replete with cameo by Orly Taitz? Quoth Ron Burgundy: “Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.” My feelings about Birtherism are well known and, needless to say, this is an efficient way of marginalizing Hayworth with undecided centrists who might otherwise be weary of decades of maverickiness. (Geraghty was moved this morning to note Hayworth’s willingness to make chitchat with the John Birch Society.) But I hope McCain’s prepared to explain why he’s ready to go bareknuckle on Hayworth by...

In critiquing Glenn Beck’s CPAC speech taking the Republican Party to task for failing to own up to its Big Government lapses, Bill Bennett cites various Republicans who have admitted the party’s culpability. But see if you can spot the glaring problem with his defense of the GOP: From Jim DeMint to Tom Coburn to Mike Pence to Paul Ryan, any number of Republicans have admitted the excesses of the party and done constructive and serious work to correct them and find and promote solutions. Even John McCain has said again and again that “the Republican party lost its way.”...

Senator McCain Poised to Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory August 24, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Try this, ladies and gentlemen. State-controlled Associated Press: "Senator John McCain says that President Obama will have to drop proposals for a government-run health insurance option if he hopes to reach congressional agreement on health care reform." So far, so good. I'm still reminded of last week. I was laughing myself silly when news came out and how big news it was that McCain was voting with Republicans. (laughing)Our nominee, our presidential nominee, and there was a huge story, about it: "Ah,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain says the absence of ailing Ted Kennedy in pushing health-care reform has made a "huge, huge difference" in whether legislation gets passed. McCain praised Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, as a master negotiator who could bring together parties with different points of view and make the right concessions to reach agreement. McCain said health-care reform might be in a very different place today if Kennedy had been able to participate in the discussions.

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