WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain lamented Tuesday he had a “better working relationship” with Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter than he does with the current administration
“This administration–I had a better working relationship as far as information back and forth with Ash Carter than I do with an old friend of 20 years,” McCain told reporters, confirming that it was Defense Secretary James Mattis he was referring to.
He continued, “Mattis and McMaster all of whom were from a friends of mine for many years. I think they had this idea once that Trump won that we are unicameral government and so we have to do what we have to do, but we are working with them on a whole lot of other issues. It’s not–you see the NDAA that’s a huge package, as you know.
McCain previously took a swipe at Trump Monday night in Philadelphia when he received a lifetime service award. He said, “To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems” he said, “is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”
He added, “We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil.”
Trump responded to Monday night comments made by McCain on WMAL Radio Tuesday saying, “people have to be careful because at some point I fight back.” The president said, “I’m being very, very nice but at some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty.”
McCain replied to Trump’s radio remarks later on Tuesday back in the Senate saying, “I have faced tougher adversaries.”