Neoconservative Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a nemesis of President Donald Trump, received boos at Turning Point USA’s High School Leadership Summit when his name was mentioned by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as an individual who derailed Trump’s Obamacare repeal efforts.
“The reason we didn’t repeal is because we have six or seven Republican senators who got cold feet,” Paul stated. “Let’s just say, John McCain, and a few others.”
McCain’s mention immediately received boos from the strongly pro-Trump audience.
McCain’s decision last year to abandon his campaign promises and vote against every one of the Trump administration’s repeal bills prominently drew the President’s ire, with Trump personally blaming the Arizona Senator for his failure to deliver on the crucial vote.
“You can call it what you want, but that’s the only reason we don’t have it, because of John McCain,” Trump stated on a radio show in September.
Rand Paul shares Trump’s disdain for McCain, after a 2013 spat where McCain chose to brand the Kentucky Senator a “wacko bird” while Paul derided McCain as “old and moss-covered”.
McCain is expected to depart the Senate at some point later this year, opening the door for a Republican more aligned with the President’s agenda. Furthermore, the Republicans also have an opportunity to pick up several Senate seats in red states in the upcoming mid-term elections. Should the Republican Senate majority increase after the November elections, the odds of an Obamacare repeal bill successfully passing the upper house grow.
