Former White House press secretary Jay Carney got a cold welcome during his first night as a CNN political commentator Wednesday courtesy of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
During a segment following President Obama’s address to the nation on his ISIS strategy, McCain accused Carney multiple times of communicating false facts about the unrest in Iraq and Syria and particularly the president’s decision not to arm and train the Syrian rebels or leave residual force in Iraq.
“I am astounded that Mr. Carney should say that the free Syrian army is now stronger,” McCain began. “In fact, they’ve been badly damaged.”
After Carney protested and insisted that he said the Obama administration now knows “a great deal more” about the Syrian opposition, McCain tore into the rookie commentator.
“C’mon, Jay,” said McCain. “We knew all about them then. You just didn’t choose to know. I was there in Syria. We knew them. C’mon, you guys are the ones — it’s your boss is the one, when the entire national security team wanted to arm and train them, that he turned them down.”
Though Carney seemed quite willing to “agree to disagree,” McCain pressed on, hitting Obama for not listening to his national security advisers on Syria.
“His entire national security team including his secretary of State said, ‘We want to arm and train and equip these people,’ and he made the unilateral decision and turned them down,” explained the Arizona senator. “And the fact that they didn’t leave a residual force in Iraq, overruling all of his military advisers, is the reason why we’re facing ISIS today.”
“Facts are stubborn things in history and people ought to know them,” McCain continued. “And now the president is saying basically that we are going to take certain actions which I would favor, but to say that America is safer and that the situation is very much like Yemen and Somalia shows me that the president doesn’t really have a grasp for how serious the threat of ISIS is.”
Carney insisted that there were multiple reasons for not leaving residual force in Iraq, such as the Iraqi government, the Bush administration’s withdrawal plan, and Obama’s promise to withdraw troops from Iraq.
“Mr. Carney, you are again saying facts that are patently false,” responded McCain. “The fact is … [the Iraqis] wanted a residual force. The president has never made a statement during that or after that he wanted the residual force left behind.”
McCain also knocked Carney for “bragging” as press secretary about the removal of troops from Iraq.
“You in your role as the spokesperson bragged about the fact that the last American combat troop had left Iraq,” he said. “If we had left a residual force, the situation would not be what it is today.”
After yet another attempt by Carney to agree to disagree, McCain exclaimed, “You don’t have the facts! You don’t have the facts, Mr. Carney. That’s the problem.”
Later, McCain accused Obama of spreading the “falsehood” that there are currently no troops on the ground. He insisted that, while we don’t need a “ground combat invasion” in Iraq, our troops do need more support to help the Iraqi army.
Finally, McCain addressed the possibility of ISIS plotting to attack the United States, disapproving of the president’s suggestion during his address that America is safe from such attacks.
“Today we had a hearing and there was testimony from the counterterrorism people and the department of Homeland Security,” he detailed. “There is Twitter traffic right now and Facebook traffic where they are urging attacks on the United States of America and there is a great concern that our southern border and our northern border [are] porous and that they will be coming across.”
Watch McCain take down Carney below.
