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WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator John McCain made the following statement regarding Brian A. Terry, a Border Patrol Agent who was killed in the line of duty last night in Rio Rico, Arizona: “My thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Agent Brian Terry after yesterday’s tragic shooting near Rio Rico, Arizona. This event is yet another reminder of the dangers the men and women of the Border Patrol face every day as they put their lives on the line to protect the American people. The increased violence in the border region demands that Congress provide the...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to Twitter on Friday to say he has "serious concerns w/ some provisions" of the tax legislation unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), but that he'll support it anyway. The bill, introduced Thursday, leaves President Obama's compromise largely unaltered but adds tax credits for alternative energy, energy-efficient homes and other "green" efforts. These provisions aim to soothe liberal Democrats who oppose the deal's extension of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Who says bipartisanship is dead? Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., delivered an eloquent speech Tuesday bidding adieu to his Democratic colleague Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who lost to Republican Ron Johnson in this month’s election, Politico reports. “I have to confess I think the Senate will be a much poorer place without Russ Feingold in it,” McCain said on the Senate floor. The two senators cooperated to produce the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in 2002, a law that drew conservatives’ ire. “We are of different parties, and our political views are often opposed,” McCain said. “But where we agreed...

John McCain said a reluctant goodbye to his longtime Senate colleague and “true friend” Russ Feingold on Tuesday. “I have to confess I think the Senate will be a much poorer place without Russ Feingold in it,” McCain said in a floor speech.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports. "I'm receiving benefits," McCain told campaign reporters, but added, "the system is broken." In 2007, he received benefits of $23,157 from Social Security, approximately $1,930 a month. The maximum monthly benefit under Social Security is $2,185. Social Security benefits are determined by age at retirement. McCain, who is 71, has received benefits since he was 65. Last week, McCain told observers at a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio, "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day...

(snip) ALAN MURRAY: Sen. McCain, I wonder if you could tell us, from where you sit, what the message of this election in the United States is. JOHN MCCAIN: It was a revolt. It was not a revolution. Revolutions take a long time. It was revolt on the part of the American people who believe that their government has lost touch with them and they have lost touch with their government. And any Republican who thinks that it was a vote in favor of Republicans should look at our approval ratings. Last time I checked, it's around 17%. When you...

Michelle Malkin offers a scorecard of GOP Senators who remain uncertain as to whether they should oppose the nightmarish DREAM Act, a bill that has been kicking around for years, but now has the urgency of a liberal lame duck congress to pass what amounts to a 2.1 million future Democrat voter recruitment drive — before year’s end. Topping the list is none other than our own Arizona amnesty architect, Señor Juan McCain, now ditching the A-word for the focus group winner: “Guest worker.” Safely ensconced for another 6-year term, he is once again a-free-from-restraint, open-borders agent. His staff says...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Senator John McCain said Monday that he worried about eroding Republican support for the war in Afghanistan and "the rise of protectionism and isolationism" in his party. "I worry a lot about the rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party," McCain, President Barack Obama's Republican rival for the White House in 2008, told a foreign policy forum. (snip) The Arizona lawmaker cited incoming Republican senator Rand Paul, stressing "already he has talked about withdrawals from, or cuts in defense, et cetera, And a number of others are." "There's no doubt that this new group...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Sen. John McCain said Sunday he opposes an immediate move to lift the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he would block a vote in the lame-duck Congress on repealing the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly, McCain, R-Ariz., said, "I want a thorough and complete study of the effect on morale and battle effectiveness." "Once we get this study," he said, "we need to have hearings and we need to examine it and we need to look at whether it's the kind of study that...

(snip) ...Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential contender in 2008, said he could fathom a short-term extension of all the tax cuts. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, saying they disproportionately benefited wealthy Americans and did not rein spending. "They should be extended until we are out of this recession," McCain said. "At such time we can look at other tax hikes. But when we're in a serious recession I cannot believe that raising taxes is a good thing on anybody." In fact, the recession officially ended in June 2009, but the recovery has been markedly slow,...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) does not regret his decision against campaigning with then-President Bush during the lead-up to the 2008 election, the senator said during an interview on Sunday. "It was a decision we made and I hope he respects it," McCain said on "Meet the Press." McCain said the choice to distance himself from Bush reflected the "realities of the political situation at the time." "President Obama was doing everything he could to tie me to President Bush," McCain said. He added that during the campaign, he called Bush "a friend."

Republican presidential nominee John McCain cornered President George W. Bush into convening a White House summit on the financial crisis – one that top administration officials thought could hurt the administration’s response to the crisis, Mr. Bush says in a new memoir. Mr. Bush writes that Mr. McCain, trailing in the polls and seeking to appear on top of the crisis, asked him to convene a special meeting to discuss a rescue package for the financial markets. Mr. Bush says he told the Arizona senator that he would first check with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to make sure a meeting...

The Obama administration reiterated its support Monday for repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) worked to strip language repealing the ban from the annual defense authorization bill. "The White House opposes any effort to strip 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' from the National Defense Authorization Act," said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. The written statement came as gay rights groups working to end the ban and liberal bloggers raised concerns that McCain would succeed in stripping repeal language from the massive defense policy bill. McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services...

President Obama stands a good chance of being reelected in 2012 if he makes progress in Afghanistan, he adopts a tougher line against Iran, the economy improves and there are no major terrorist attacks in the United States, a senior Republican said Saturday. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who has become a leading GOP national security spokesman, said that if Obama is looking for cooperation with Republicans, a continued U.S. military effort in Afghanistan is "one area where Republicans feel comfortable standing by the president" and are likely to give him more support than many in his own party. Although...

With most predicting he will go down in defeat, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold earned compliments from his former GOP ally, Sen. John McCain, on Monday. The Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee has campaigned hard for Republican Senate candidates this cycle while sharply criticizing their Democratic rivals, such as Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) But McCain saved kind words for Feingold (Wis.), with whom he worked on landmark campaign finance reform legislation eight years ago.

"One thing I think we ought to do, other than blocking his agenda and controlling spending, is trying to solve a hard problem like Social Security, and if we show our willingness to work with him on that, I think that would be well-received by the American people," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told WVOC-AM.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. John McCain says he shares Sarah Palin's opinion that Republican congressional candidates could suffer at the polls if they stray from the tea party's anti-spending, anti-tax message. (snip) The Arizona Republican said that when Republicans gained majorities in Congress in 1994, "they betrayed our base, particularly in the area of fiscal responsibility" and were repudiated in the next two elections. McCain said, "What Sarah is saying is, 'We've got to get fiscally responsible Republicans in.' "

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...

(snip) ...as McCain again said he supported his former running mate former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. "I haven't seen anyone since Ronald Reagan that with certain individuals and large groups of individuals who really have this passionate belief and support for her," he said, "It's really a remarkable thing to observe." (snip) "I couldn't be more proud of the campaign she waged," he said. "I couldn't be more proud of her or her performance and her continued performance. So, I think, you begin to think about legacy and I think that Sarah Palin will play a very big role in...

Former Republican presidential contender John McCain reunited with his onetime advisor Carly Fiorina on the campaign trail Saturday in San Diego, offering a blistering indictment of Barbara Boxer’s record on military issues and calling her the “most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today” -- an assessment he said he’d made while having “the unpleasant experience” of serving with her. “When you hear her say that she supports the men and women in the military, my friends, she does not,” said McCain, a former Navy pilot who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam...