Senator John McCain unloaded on Tea Party Senators Wednesday, saying that he would fight them “every step of the way” if they tried to shutdown the government again.
“I can tell you this government shutdown was very harmful to my state and its citizens, and it was an outrageous, stupid pointless effort that could not win,” McCain (R-Ariz.) told Atlantic correspondent Jeffery Goldberg during the Washington Ideas Forum Wednesday morning.
“I’ve been in a lot of fights in my life, and I know when I can win and I know when I can’t,” McCain continued. “It would take 67 votes in the United States Senate to repeal Obamacare – we’re a long way from there.”
McCain noted that hundreds of Arizona were turned away from the national parks and thousands went without food during the shutdown for no good reason.
“I fought against Obamacare before Senator [Mike] Lee on the floor of the United States Senate,” McCain exploded. He then reminded the audience that he traveled across the country during the last presidential election with Mitt Romney supporting his repeal and replace strategy. “So I take a back seat to no one,” he shouted.
“But when they shutdown the government, and harm the lives of my citizens that I’m supposed to be representing, then I resent it. And I’m gonna fight ’em every step of the way. And if they do it again, I’ll fight ’em every step of the way then. It’s pointless,” he said referring to Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
In his oratory he did not disclose the fact that he repeatedly voted in lockstep with the Republican Party on bills to defund Obamacare or let the government shutdown. It was only in the final days of the shutdown that McCain joined Democrats and voted to fund Obamacare and reopen the government.
In the interview, Goldberg and McCain also discussed the future of the Republican Party. McCain rejected the notion that five years ago, the GOP was the party of John McCain and now it’s the “party of Ted Cruz.” There’s always been a “libertarian/isolationist or withdrawal from the world wing of the party,” McCain noted, reminding the audience that from 2008 to 2012 it was known as the “Ron Paul wing of the party.” McCain said that Sens. Lee, Paul and Cruz, as well as some others (whom he did not name) represent that wing of the party.
And while he “admires and respects” Cruz, McCain said he disagrees with that world view.
America can’t withdrawal from the world the way Cruz and his allies would prefer, McCain said, because “every time we have throughout history, we paid a very very heavy price for it.”
“America leads and if America doesn’t lead, then bad guys will lead.”
