Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, defending his comments on the economy back in 2008, and noting how they are very different from President Barack Obama’s ‘the private sector is doing just fine’ gaffe last week.
“At the time, the stock market had just fallen 700 points,” said McCain. “Americans were frightened. I wanted to reassure the American people that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. It’s still the best system in the world. That’s why we have Steve Jobs and Apple and Facebook and all of those things.”
McCain said the private sector could be fine if the Obama administration would stop intervening.
“We’ve got a trillion and a half dollars sitting overseas. Double the stimulus package. All we have to do is bring that money home, these companies that are holding that money promise to invest and hire, and we could have a stimulus to our economy.”
McCain accused the president of shamefully playing politics, stating the president could have gotten amnesty or immigration reform done a long time ago if it was a serious issue for the president.
“I can [see] if you have 60 votes in the United States Senate and overwhelming majority in the House for the first two years of your presidency,” said McCain. “No matter what the position of the Republican Party was, so, I think that this is obviously a way to divert attention from very bad news the president’s had for the last three or four weeks.”
McCain is not the only critic of the president. Republicans in Congress are saying that the timing of immigration reform is very much a political ploy to lock up the Latino vote.
“I think that’s very clear. What I would like to see is Marco Rubio and others are coming up, Republicans with the Dream Act that I think we could negotiate on. Everyone has sympathy for the plight of these young people.”
McCain also went on to defend Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, saying that Romney wanted to see comprehensive immigration reform passed before the Dream Act gets passed.
I think Mitt Romney, he said again this morning, he was [wrong] — and has said previously, he was certainly willing to address that issue and also immigration reform in a comprehensive fashion, as well. He is willing to do that, and is ready to do that. He understands the plight of these young people.”
