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Tags: john mccain | debt | deal | relief bill | no way | do business

Sen. McCain on Trump Debt Deal: 'Not the Way to Do Business'

Sen. McCain on Trump Debt Deal: 'Not the Way to Do Business'

By    |   Sunday, 10 September 2017 11:14 AM EDT

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a frequent critic of President Donald Trump and often calling for bipartisan work, ripped the president for his debt-ceiling deal with Democrats while also rebuking congressional Republicans for getting nothing done themselves.

"That's what the American people want us to do," aSen. McCain told CNN's "State of the Union," referring to bipartisan "debate" over one-sided deals in Washington. "They now see [Supreme Court Justice Neil] Gorsuch and some regulations – that's what they see with nine months of undivided Republican majorities.

"That's not good."

Host Jake Tapper pressed Sen. McCain on his voting against Trump's debt-ceiling deal this week with minority leadership Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., after so often calling for Republicans to work with Democrats.

"In all due respect, this was not an exercise in bipartisanship," McCain clarified. "The Republicans leaders, [House Speaker Paul Ryan and [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell, were surprised to hear that he had cut this deal with Chuck and Nancy."

Ironically, amid his calls to work with Democrats, McCain was one of 17 GOP senators to vote against raising the debt ceiling to aid hurricane relief packages for Harvey and Irma.

"The way you do deals is you sit down together – you have good staff with you and you go with proposals back and forth," McCain told Tapper. "The proposal that the president expected, the Speaker of the House had just categorically rejected. That's not the way we need to do business."

Issues as politically polarizing such as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) require "comprehensive" work from both sides in congress, McCain said.

"It is not conscionable to tell young people who came here as children that they have to go back to a country they don't know – 900 of these 'dreamers' are serving in uniform in the United States military," McCain said. "Are we going to go to a young man or woman serving in Afghanistan or Iraq today saying, 'By the way, you're a dreamer: Get back to' – fill in the blank.

"We're not going to do that to these young men and women serving in uniform. We need a comprehensive plan.

"We need it to go through Congress, which DACA did not, as you know. We did it once in the Senate and can do it again in a bipartisan fashion. Partisanship seems to be dominating the environment in Washington to the detriment of the American people."

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Politics
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a frequent critic of President Donald Trump and often calling for bipartisan work, ripped the president for his debt-ceiling deal with Democrats while also rebuking congressional Republicans for getting nothing done themselves."That's what the...
john mccain, debt, deal, relief bill, no way, do business
409
2017-14-10
Sunday, 10 September 2017 11:14 AM
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