Trips to ease allies’ minds cited in McCain fatigue
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., before Thursday’s high-profile congressional hearing, in which he drew criticism and concern for his phrasing of questions, had spent the previous week traveling around the Pacific trying to reassure allies that the U.S. government remains in their corner.
Some friends and colleagues said they suspect his awkward performance at the Intelligence Committee’s hearing with James Comey, the fired FBI director, could be traced to McCain’s near-constant global travels whenever Congress takes a break.
It’s a role McCain has long played, but it’s taken on a more serious tenor in the era of President Donald Trump. Already this year, the senator has logged more than 75,000 miles to more than 15 nations across three continents, according to his staff.
Social media users as well as news agencies said McCain’s questions appeared convoluted; Fox News ran a headline that said “Partisans agree … McCain was confusing.” McCain tried to ask Comey questions about how he got fired and how he made the decision last year to close the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information while she served as secretary of state.
At times, it seemed as if the 2008 Republican presidential nominee was equating the two investigations — one that was closed almost a year ago, and another that seems to still be expanding. The line of questioning seemed to many to be an attempt to defend Trump.
Yet around the world, McCain has sought to explain or rebut statements and positions that Trump has made.
“When Sen. McCain is in the room, there’s just a different level of respect,” Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., who recently traveled with McCain, said in an interview. “His mere presence reassures our allies in the Asia Pacific and the Northern Atlantic.”
Over the 10-day break Congress took around the Memorial Day holiday, McCain tried to shore up frayed alliances from Australia to Vietnam to Singapore. He landed in Australia several months after Trump clashed with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement. And McCain sat on the floor of the Parliament of Australia during “Question Time,” an honor reserved usually for visiting heads of state or foreign ministers.
And Turnbull and two former prime ministers attended a McCain speech toward the end of the visit. The 80-yearold senator didn’t hold back his contempt for Trump’s behavior toward such a long-standing ally.
“I come to Australia at a time when many are questioning whether America is still committed to these values. And you are not alone. Other American allies have similar doubts these days. And this is understandable,” he said. “I realize that some of President Trump’s actions and statements have unsettled America’s friends. They have unsettled many Americans as well.”
He went on to detail the state of American politics, the rise of nationalist populism, legislative dysfunction and hyper-partisanship. He expressed understanding for those who doubt Trump, but he assured them that the president’s national security team was experienced and fully invested in the nation’s traditional role of global force for democracy.
McCain often prompts presidents and prime ministers to clamor for an audience, his colleagues say — “because they want to hear what he has to say,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a frequent travel companion. “He is a reassuring figure around the world.”
Barrasso and Coons joined McCain in Vietnam, where McCain is now a revered political figure after having been shot down as a Navy fighter pilot and held captive 5½ years. In the Senate in the 1990s, McCain and John Kerry, D-Mass., another Vietnam War hero, led the effort to normalize relations with Vietnam.
After the more recent delegation’s first day there, the leading Vietnamese newspaper ran a front-page story with a headline “Senator McCain and friends meet with national leaders,” Coons recalled. No mention of the other lawmakers on the trip.
“As a face of Congress around the world, he would be the prime minister of Congress,” Barrasso said.
His trip that preceded the congressional hearing was only the latest whirlwind itinerary for McCain.
Two days after Christmas, McCain began a swing through several Baltic nations that view Russia’s incursions into Ukraine as an existential threat to their freedom.
Ten days after Trump won the election, McCain led a bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum, where NATO allies were panicked by Trump’s declaration that the security alliance might be “obsolete” as he softened toward Russia.
“We were reassuring people, in some cases scraping them off the ceiling,” Coons said of those meetings.
In one week in April, McCain hit seven tiny nations across southeastern Europe that collectively form a key region — and serve as a transit point for Islamist militants heading to and from Syria. In a speech in Kosovo, he assured leaders that they still had friends in Washington.
Even younger colleagues said the schedule is grueling. Coons, 53, marveled at how McCain squeezed in a latenight meeting with Defense Secretary James Mattis at a security conference in Singapore just as he cut short his trip to fly back to tend to his wife, Cindy, who had broken her arm in a fall.
After questioning Comey, McCain issued a formal statement blaming his performance on staying up late to watch an Arizona Diamondbacks game on the West Coast.