Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chastised Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) for failing to attend an Armed Services Committee briefing about ISIS in order to attend a fundraiser Tuesday.
“Here we are with Americans being beheaded, and Sen. Hagan doesn’t even show up for the briefing,” McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, according to the Charlotte Observer. “She goes to a fundraiser instead.”
McCain made his comments during a campaign stop with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in North Carolina for Hagan’s Republican challenger, state House Speaker Thom Tillis.
Hagan has been under fire for missing numerous Armed Services Committee hearings and admitting to missing a classified briefing on global threats in order to attend a fundraiser in New York City.
McCain added, according to the Observer, that up to 10,000 more American advisors, special forces, and support personnel need to be sent to defeat ISIS.
“ISIS is winning,” said McCain. “We’re losing.”
When asked if he concurred, Tillis responded, “What Sen. [McCain] is talking about is not having people at the front lines. I think we’ve got the expectation that we’re going to have partners in the Middle East and others. But we’ve got to have American expertise in advisory positions to make sure they do it right, and to make sure that once we secure the ground again, we keep it.”
Hagan spokesman Chris Hayden responded to the criticism by arguing that Hagan “has a 98 percent voting attendance record” on the committee and chaired over 20 hearings on counterterrorism.
“It is Speaker Tillis who has repeatedly refused to tell North Carolina service members and their families whether he would support putting American boots on the ground and how he would combat the threat of ISIS,” he added.
Recent polling has Tillis and Hagan in a statistical tie.