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(snip) MR. GREGORY: You are in a, a primary battle for re-election against former Republican Congress J.D. Hayworth of Arizona. And on the issue of health care, this is what he says on his Web site, on the issues, "Nowhere is the Obama administration's socialist agenda more evident than in their attempts to grab control over 17 percent of our nation's economy." Socialist agenda, do you think that goes too far? SEN. McCAIN: Look, you'll have to have Mr. Hayworth on to explain the things he says. MR. GREGORY: All right. SEN. McCAIN: I'm, I'm not ready to do that....

Looks like Meghan McCain has a shot at being Tila Tequila's new bff. The daughter of former presidential candidate John McCain was spotted having lunch with the MySpace minx-turned reality TV star in West Hollywood last week -- and apparently the two have a lot in common. "People may think we are so different, but she is a Scorpio and I'm a Scorpio and we have very strong opinions about things," Tila Tequila told Usmagazine.com Sunday. Meghan "is a really good friend of mine," she said.The two dined out at the posh Chateau Marmont after contacting each other through Twitter,...

LAKEVILLE, Minnesota (CNN) – John McCain heard boos at a town hall meeting Friday night after the Republican presidential nominee called for the crowd to be more respectful towards rival Barack Obama. “We would like you to remain a true American hero,” an elderly military veteran told him. “We want you to fight.” “I will fight, but we will be respectful,” McCain said. “I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments and I will respect him.” When the crowd began to boo, McCain told them “No, no. I want everyone to be respectful.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Obama administration's initiative to deploy additional federal resources in the fight against rising drug-related violence along the Mexican border was criticized as insufficient in a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, said the administration's plan to send hundreds of extra federal agents and new crime-fighting equipment to the border "represents a significant step forward" but is not enough. Mexican drug cartels, believed to be operating in more than 230 American cities "from Appalachia to Alaska," represent a "clear and present" danger to the United States, Lieberman said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing...

King: Does Obama seem like the same guy who ran against your dad? How do you view him? McCain: He's our president and when the election was over and when President Obama won, all negative feelings were gone. I support the president.

Senator John McCain says he seeks to work closely with the Obama administration on economy, despite holding vastly different views on the issue. "These are terrible, perilous times, so I will seek ways to work with the president of the United States," the former Republican presidential nominee told Politico. "I don't want him to fail in his mission of restoring our economy." McCain, who was among leading opposition forces in the US Senate against President Barack Obama's hefty $787 billion stimulus plan, said he would not refuse to help Obama. McCain said he had already started collaborating with Obama and...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is moving to overhaul the way the U.S. government awards contracts for work to be done by the private sector, saying there have been too many abuses of taxpayer money. Obama joined Republican Sen. John McCain, his presidential campaign rival, and other congressional figures Wednesday to put his pen to an executive memorandum. The document essentially commits the administration to new marching orders for awarding such contracts, and Obama said that it could save up to $40 billion to $50 billion a year. One area in particular that is targeted is no-bid contracts, which...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain, who battled Barack Obama hard on the campaign trail on the Iraq war, said on Friday he supports President Obama's plans to remove U.S. combat forces from Iraq over 19 months. "Overall it is a reasonable plan and one that can work and I support it," McCain told Reuters. McCain, as a presidential candidate in the 2008 election, had argued that Obama was naive on national security and criticized his pledge to pull U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.

Before an audience of conservatives on Thursday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., took aim at the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, and former President Bush for supporting the government's purchase last October of $700 billion in bad mortgages and debt held by struggling U.S. financial institutions. He even hinted that McCain, R-Ariz., might have won the White House last year had he staked out a position in opposition to the bailout. Congressional Republicans, last fall, offered a better, less expensive plan to rescue Wall Street and fix the economy, Huckabee said. But the Bush White House and Sen....

If anyone else called him “little jerk,” Sen. Lindsey Graham might be offended. But the jab comes from Sen. John McCain, so he wears it like a badge of honor. “If John’s not belittling you, you’re in trouble,” Graham said. “He calls me lots of other names, too, but they’re not appropriate for the newspaper.” McCain and Graham aren’t just friends. They’re inseparable, so much so that colleagues, staffers and journalists have begun making cracks about the relationship between the freshman senator from South Carolina and the man who would be president. Some call Graham a lapdog. Others say he...

John McCain hasn’t exactly demonstrated a desire to lead the GOP after his loss to Barack Obama in November. Indeed, he has shown more interest in scolding Republicans for their opposition to Obama and demanded that the party cooperate with Obama’s new policies and appointees, even where serious ethical questions exist. That makes his sudden opposition to Obama’s stimulus plan rather surprising: President Barack Obama dispatched his top economic adviser and vice president Sunday to relentlessly press their sales pitch for an $825 billion stimulus package to halt the U.S. economic slide, as the plan came under more fire from...

(CNN) – John McCain on Wednesday used his first Senate floor speech since the end of the presidential campaign to urge his colleagues to quickly confirm fellow Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. "I think the message that the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together and get to work," McCain said. "I think we ought to let Senator Clinton, who is obviously qualified and obviously will serve, get to work immediately." The Senate is expected to easily confirm Clinton Wednesday afternoon, and McCain's particular support of the New York senator isn't surprising....

The old cliche "politics make strange bedfellows" could not be truer as Obama honored his political rival, Senator John McCain, at an honorary dinner the night before the inauguration. During the 2008 campaign, there were heated exchanges between the two over domestic and foreign policy that were sometimes personal in nature. On Monday night, January 19, 2009, Obama referred to the former Vietnam prisoner as a war hero who understood better than most really matters in politics. Obama called for a new spirit of cooperation in Washington. Obama began the speech saying, "I am here tonight to say a few...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama honored his vanquished Republican rival John McCain on Monday, describing the Arizona senator as an "American hero" while the Democrat prepared to assume the office that both men fought bitterly to attain. Obama and McCain clashed repeatedly on the campaign trail over foreign and domestic policy in sometimes heated exchanges that occasionally veered into the personal. But Obama made clear that period had passed even as he predicted the two would not always get along in the future. "John is not known to bite his tongue and if I'm screwing up, he's going to...

BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK WASHINGTON — Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn? It was just one...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced Gov. Janet Napolitano to his fellow senators Thursday, saying she has a "no-nonsense" attitude that will serve her well as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. McCain introduced Napolitano to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which questioned the Arizona Democrat about her credentials. McCain told committee members that Napolitano has served Arizona as a United States Attorney, Attorney General and governor and that, in 2005, she was named one of America's Top Five Governors by "Time" magazine, which stated, "Positioning herself as a no-nonsense, pro-business centrist, she has worked outside party...

A desire by both men to secure their places in history might forge an unlikely pairing. BY RICK SANTORUM Obama also faces the reality of needing at least one Republican senator to join him to break filibusters. Many speculate that three moderate Republicans will provide the necessary Senate votes and the imprimatur of bipartisanship. . . . . . But I believe Obama has an ace in the hole among Senate Republicans. This unlikely ace can deliver not only the GOP moderates needed to break a filibuster, but also the stamp of bipartisanship: the 2008 GOP standard bearer, John McCain.....