Five-term U.S. Senator John McCain lashed out at his constituents, calling some Arizonans “crazies” and telling a reporter that recent remarks from 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump are “very hurtful” to McCain.
“This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,” McCain tells a New Yorker reporter. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”
Trump has been decrying the lax state of immigration enforcement in the U.S. and related problem of sanctuary cities. He has brought to national attention the stories of families killed by illegal aliens. Since his announcement, Trump has catapulted to the top of polls for 2016 GOP Presidential hopefuls.
“Now he galvanized them,” McCain said. “He’s really got them activated.”
McCain is considered vulnerable in his 2016 bid for re-election.
“We have a very extreme element within our Republican Party,” McCain says, apparently referencing January 2014 when members of his own party formally censured him. Those spearheading the censure said McCain had pushed liberal views.
Breitbart News reported that McCain had been censured in a whopping 1,150-351 vote of Maricopa County Republican Party members in January 2014. The resolution read in part, “Only in times of great crisis or betrayal is it necessary to publicly censure our leaders. Today we are faced with both. For too long we have waited, hoping Senator McCain would return to our Party’s values on his own. That has not happened.”
McCain even copped to lashing back at those GOP leaders, “We did to some degree regain control of the Party.”
Reports indicate that following the censure McCain and his allies launched a political cleansing of the Arizona GOP leadership, ejecting one conservative Republican after another. Politico reported that McCain’s team sought to, “unseat conservative activists who hold obscure, but influential, local party offices.”
Close McCain ally Sen. Lindsay Graham has joined his friend with name-calling and condemning Trump, referring to the real estate mogul as a “wrecking ball.”
Arizonans vividly remember a 2010 McCain campaign ad in which he promised to “build the danged [border] fence.” Since that time McCain has not only failed to make good on that promise, but has participated in the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would have granted de-facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward on Tuesday announced her bid to serve the people of Arizona in the U.S. Senate and replace John McCain. She called for border security measures that would further national security. Attendees repeatedly expressed a desire to see McCain removed from his Senate seat with calls to “retire McCain.”
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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