PHOENIX — Incumbent John McCain found himself on the defensive Monday over the fact it took months for him to conclude that Donald Trump is not fit to be president.
During a televised debate, McCain made his case for voters to give him another six years in the U.S. Senate, where he has served since 1986 following four years in the House.
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, the Democrat nominee, is trying to use McCain’s tenure to argue that the 80-year-old senator has been in Washington too long and is out of touch with constituents. McCain also has been buffeted by charges that some of his positions appear to morph over time.
But during the hour-long debate, McCain insisted that he is the same person that Arizonans sent to Washington.
“I will continue to be known as the ‘maverick,’” he said. “I will continue to fight with my own Republican Party when necessary.”
“There was a time when John McCain was a maverick,” Kirkpatrick countered.
“Now he has taken more money from Wall Street than any other sitting senator.”
Kirkpatrick said that, regardless of McCain’s reputation, it’s time for him to retire. She proposed term limits of three two-year terms in the House and two six-year terms in the Senate.
McCain responded, “The voters determine term limits.”
McCain, for his part, sought to paint Kirkpatrick with the controversy over the deaths of four U.S. diplomats at Benghazi when the embassy there was attacked in 2012. McCain acknowledged that Kirkpatrick had no role. “I don’t associate her with Benghazi,” he said. “I associate her with Hillary Clinton.”
McCain repeated charges by Republicans that Clinton was responsible for failing to respond to requests for help. “There has been a cover-up the likes of which I have not seen,” he said.
But McCain found himself under stiff questioning about his backing of Trump. That support continued through personal insults like Trump calling McCain a “loser” for getting captured during the Vietnam war, through Trump insulting the parents of a Muslim soldier who died in Iraq and through Trump saying a judge of Mexican heritage had no right to hear a lawsuit against him over Trump University.
It took the revelation Friday of some 11-year-old comments Trump made, boasting of assaulting women and grabbing them, for McCain on Saturday to distance himself from the GOP presidential nominee. McCain said Monday he would write in the name of some conservative candidate, possibly Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
But McCain sidestepped questions of whether he would be comfortable with Trump’s “finger on the nuclear button.”
“I do not see a scenario where he would have his finger on the button,” McCain said. He conceded that he had previously backed Trump to be president, a position that would allow him to launch a nuclear attack. “I was supporting the nominee of the party,” McCain said of why it took so long to dump Trump.
McCain all but predicted that Trump will lose in November. He said that it’s important for Republicans to maintain control of the Senate if Clinton is elected, particularly to block her appointments, including filling the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Related to that issue is the decision by federal courts to block the executive orders of President Obama to allow some immigrants who arrived here illegally to remain. McCain said the lower court judges got it right. “Barack Obama violated his oath of office,” he said.
Kirkpatrick countered that legal issues would be resolved by the nation’s highest court if the Republican-controlled Senate would finally have hearings on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland.
McCain, for his part, has focused on Kirkpatrick’s support for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, even as the program is faced with fewer options for those eligible and sharply rising premiums.
Kirkpatrick acknowledged problems with the plan, but said it can be fixed. The Affordable Care Act has meant that people cannot be denied coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions, she said.
“It is based on a flawed premise,” McCain responded, saying it has to be scrapped and Congress needs to start over.
Kirkpatrick is not being helped in her campaign by the fact that Arizona has been particularly hard hit by problems with the Affordable Care Act.
At one point earlier this year, it appeared that Pinal County, in the heart of her congressional district, would become the only county in the entire country to have no providers at all.
That has since been remedied with a decision by Blue Cross to write policies, though the costs have yet to be unveiled. But 14 of the state’s 15 counties will still have only one Obamacare provider.
Most polls have shown McCain with an edge over Kirkpatrick, a three-term member of the House. That reflects, at least part, the edge Republicans have in voter registration.
Kirkpatrick also has relatively low name recognition and has been unable to raise as much money as McCain.
The most recent campaign finance reports show that McCain has raised $12.4 million this election cycle and still has more than $5 million on hand. Kirkpatrick, by contrast, listed total contributions of nearly $5.9 million but with less than $2.3 million in the bank.
McCain also has benefited from more than $1 million spent on his behalf by the Arizona Grassroots Action PAC, some of it used to help him defeat state Sen. Kelli Ward in the GOP primary.
Kirkpatrick foes have been airing a commercial with a video that shows her leaving a meeting of constituents in 2009 who were upset with her vote on the Affordable Care Act. She has responded by saying that she was urged to leave to avoid creating an unsafe situation.
