Ailing Arizona Republican senator and former presidential nominee John McCain appears to have made it his mission to make Donald Trump’s life as difficult as possible before the end of his career.
That was on full display on Monday during a speech McCain delivered after former Vice President Joe Biden awarded him the Liberty Medal. The GOP senator leveled a series of veiled but clear shots at Trump’s disturbing worldview.
Video:
Sen. McCain calls refusal of “obligations of international leadership” for “spurious nationalism” unpatriotic https://t.co/bx4E93sdnE
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— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 17, 2017
McCain said:
To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.
Without even mentioning Trump’s name, John McCain made what was arguably the hardest criticism yet of Donald Trump’s foreign policy and worldview.
Instead of leading the world, as McCain suggested, Trump has diminished American credibility by abandoning American values at home and unraveling international agreements with our allies abroad. And all of it so Trump can gain the personal satisfaction of scaling back the hard but fruitful work of former Presiden Barack Obama.
Whether it’s unconstitutionally closing America’s borders to immigrants and refugees, picking fights with world leaders, pulling out of a global climate change agreement, allowing Russia to get away with a massive attack on our democracy, or unraveling a key accord that prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Trump isn’t just taking a wrecking ball to the Obama legacy; he’s bulldozing decades of American leadership and international norms.
While John McCain’s prognosis may not be favorable, he is certainly making the most of the time he has left by standing up to Trump and putting country ahead of party.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
