It’s something of an open secret on the Hill, but Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) temper can be so explosive, it tends to alienate friend and foe alike. Consider yesterday’s brouhaha over the new immigration-reform package.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn’t spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.
During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources — both Democrats and Republicans — who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.
Apparently, McCain accused Cornyn of raising petty objections, and Cornyn accused McCain of having dropped in without taking part in the negotiations. “F**k you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” McCain reportedly shouted. Paul Kane added that McCain also “used a curse word associated with chickens.”
“These negotiations can be very tense, and there was a spirited exchange. That’s it,” said Brian Jones, spokesman for McCain’s presidential campaign.
By all indications, this was more than just a “spirited exchange.” McCain hasn’t cast a vote in five weeks, he showed up at the last minute, denounced Republicans who’ve been working on this and dared to disagree with him, dropped an F-bomb or two, and flew off to another campaign event — where he no doubt bragged about being a great senator who knows how to get things done.
What’s even more important, and which seems to have been overlooked in media accounts of yesterday’s confrontation, is that McCain seems to have a habit of this kind of behavior.
Several years ago, Jake Tapper reported on an incident in which McCain got into a shouting match with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Grassley got in McCain’s face, and the two pit bulls started barking at each other while the other senators in the room sat back and watched. The pair got so close to one another that the senator who tells me the story — aware that because of war injuries, McCain’s arms don’t fully extend — was convinced McCain “was going to drive the top of his head into Grassley’s nose. I was convinced that bone fragments were going to go into Chuck’s brain, and I was sitting there and was about to witness a murder.”
McCain suddenly stood up. But instead of a head-butting homicide, he delivered a crushing blow of words.
“You know, senator,” McCain said, seething, “I thought your problem was that you don’t listen. But that’s not it at all. Your problem is that you’re a f**king jerk.”
These apparently aren’t isolated incidents.
“I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues,” said former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees. “He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
McCain’s outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
“The senator explained that he had already committed to support George Bush,” the former Senate staffer said. “McCain said ‘f**k you’ and never spoke to him again.”
Keep in mind, we’re talking about McCain dropping F-bombs on Republicans.
I guess this helps explain why McCain hasn’t exactly racked up the Senate GOP endorsements for his presidential campaign.