McCain on Trump: 'All this business with Putin is very disturbing'

Sen. John McCain voiced renewed concerns about President Trump as the nation’s commander-in-chief, saying his recent actions have him worried.

McCain told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning:

“All this business with Vladimir Putin is very disturbing to all of us. To equate Vladimir Putin and the United States of America as he was asked. You know, I guess it was Bill O’Reilly who said, ‘But Putin is a killer.’ And he basically said, ‘So are we.’ That moral equivalency is a contradiction of everything the United States has ever stood for in the 20th and 21st century.”

McCain told Todd that he expects more revelations as the intelligence committee investigates the role Russia played in the 2016 election, but isn’t calling for a broader investigation.

“There are so many questions out there that we first of all need to understand the parameters of what’s happened here. And so I would hold off and wait and see what happens,” McCain said. “One thing that you and I know from being around Washington, there’s probably going to be some more shoes to drop.”

McCain said he believes a Republican-controlled Congress can investigate President Trump thoroughly if necessary.

He said the Trump administration’s recent actions are evidence of poor planning.

“I worry about the president’s understanding of some of these issues and his contradictory articulations. And I think the rollout of the ‘immigration reform’ was an example of a need for an orderly decision-making process in the White House. And that, I think, is probably what’s plaguing them more than anything else right now,” the Arizona Republican said.

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McCain, chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, said he was also worried about Steve Bannon’s seat on the National Security Council. He said the council should be free of political influence.

“In terms of the political advisqor as a permanent member of the National Security Council, and in Mr. Bannon’s role as both political advisor (to Trump) and member of the National Security Council, I’m very worried about that,” McCain said.

Bannon is the former executive chairman of Breitbart News.

McCain said the new administration has weakened confidence in trade relationships with European and other trading partners and that is one example of how other nations view the United States.

At the end of the interview, McCain suggested Trump’s harsh criticism of the press — calling them “the enemy of the American people” in a Tweet — goes too far.

“I hate the press. I hate you especially,” McCain said, half-jokingly, according to a transcript released by NBC. “But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”

He said Trump isn’t a dictator, but pointed to what he said is one of the first historical steps taken by dictators.

“They get started by suppressing free press. In other words, a consolidation of power. When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history,” he said.