The Senate Republican Conference has remained awfully quiet as President Donald Trump has engaged in a days-long broadside against John McCain. But Johnny Isakson is making some noise.
The Georgia senator on Wednesday mounted the most forceful defense yet within the Senate GOP of McCain, who died last summer after serving in the Senate for decades and has continually drawn the ire of the president in the months after his death. Trump said on Tuesday that he “never will be” a fan of McCain and tweeted over the weekend attacks on McCain’s vote against Obamacare repeal and his handling of the Steele dossier, a mostly unverified report focusing on the president’s alleged ties to Russia.
Isakson told the Bulwark that the president’s targeting of McCain “drives me crazy.”
“The country deserves better, the McCain family deserves better, I don’t care if he’s president of United States, owns all the real estate in New York, or is building the greatest immigration system in the world. Nothing is more important than the integrity of the country and those who fought and risked their lives for all of us,” Isakson said.
He went on to raise concerns about the message that Trump is sending by targeting the Vietnam veteran who was imprisoned and tortured overseas. Trump has also mocked McCain’s military service and said he “likes people who weren’t captured” at war, a reference to McCain’s five-plus years as a POW.
“When the president is saying that that he doesn’t respect John McCain and he’s never going to respect John McCain and all these kids are out there listening to the president of the United States talk that way about the most decorated senator in history who is dead,” Isakson said. “It just sets the worst tone possible.”
Isakson isn’t totally alone in defending McCain. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that Trump is making a “huge mistake” by attacking his friend and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he “can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain.” But Isakson is the first Republican senator to so directly challenge Trump.
The Senate is on recess this week, with GOP senators scattered across the country and many on international trips. Still, the response to Trump has been unusual as Democrats have more forcefully defended McCain, who voted with Democrats on stopping Obamacare repeal and enacting immigration reform but also railed against President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and often frustrated Democratic leaders. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has called Trump’s attacks on McCain “repulsive” and Sen Jack Reed (D-R.I.) called it “despicable.”
Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who holds McCain’s seat, has not said anything yet and neither have other GOP senators close to McCain.
Isakson may have more political freedom to speak out than some of his colleagues: Isakson backed Trump’s national emergency on the border last week as nearly a quarter of Senate Republicans, including Romney, voted against it. Those votes have infuriated some Republicans back in senators’ home states: The Kansas City Star reported that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) was uninvited from a party event this spring over his vote.
Graham has also defended McCain, his best friend in the Senate, after Trump’s initial tweets trashing the Arizona Republican, but did not go after Trump as directly as Isakson. Graham is a close ally with Trump and said on Monday that McCain handled the Steele dossier appropriately and that he’s defended McCain in conversations with Trump for acting “responsibly.”
“I want to help this President, I want him to be successful. I will help him where I can but pushback when I need to. When it comes to criticizing Senator McCain and his service I think that’s a huge mistake,” Graham said this week
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/mccain-senate-gop-johnny-isakson-1228568
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Burgess Everett
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