Longtime Arizona senator, former Republican presidential candidate and foreign policy hawk Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose line of questioning during former FBI director James Comey's testimony last week raised some eyebrows, has said in an interview with the Guardian that the U.S. was better off with Barack Obama as president "as far as American leadership is concerned."
“What do you think the message is? The message is that America doesn’t want to lead,” McCain replied to the news outlet, which described the senator as “visibly irked.”
“[Other nations] are not sure of American leadership, whether it be in Siberia or whether it be in Antarctica,” he added.
The response came to a question about President Donald Trump’s Twitter response to the London terror attacks, including his response to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and the world’s perception of it.
When asked if America’s status around the globe was better under Obama, McCain replied, “As far as American leadership is concerned, yes.”
The remark has caused a firestorm on social media.
McCain and Trump have been on-and-off feuding publicly for some time.
A few incidents that come to mind are Trump's back and forth with the Khans — a Gold Star family — and McCain's response; the president's "I like people who weren't captured" remark; McCain's criticism of a deadly Yemen raid as a "failure."
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