The slim-margin Senate vote on tax reform planned for Tuesday is expected to move forward without Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who returned home for the holidays, leaving Washington after having been hospitalized for side effects from chemo therapy to treat brain cancer, CBS reported Sunday.
Sen. McCain's son-in-law, Ben Domenech, told CBS's "Face the Nation" his father-in-law is "doing well" and "in good spirits," despite his recent hospitalization and a very serious glioblastoma diagnosis.
"I'm happy to say that he's doing well," Domenech, the husband of McCain's daughter Meaghan, told CBS host John Dickerson. "The truth is that as anyone knows whose family has battled cancer or any significant disease that oftentimes there are side effects of treatment that you have. The senator has been through a round of chemo and he was hospitalized this week at Walter Reed."
"Senator McCain has responded well to treatment he received at Walter Reed Medical Center for a viral infection and continues to improve. An evaluation of his underlying cancer shows he is responding positively to ongoing treatment," said the chief of neuro-oncology at NIH, MSNBC reported.
"He is grateful for the excellent care he continues to receive, and appreciates the outpouring of support from people all over the country. He looks forward to returning to Washington in January," a statement from McCain read, according to MSNBC.
Sen. McCain did vote on the Senate GOP's tax reform plan, which sent it to the Congress conference committee, but he cast the deciding "no" vote on the skinny repeal this summer.
Despite McCain's absence for the Senate tax reform vote, which is expected Tuesday, and a narrow GOP margin 52-48 in the Senate, Republicans still are expecting the conference's version of the tax legislation to pass. Without McCain's vote, Republicans can afford just one "no" to pass the bill 50-49 with Vice President Mike Pence registering the tiebreaking vote.
President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday tax reform passage is "just days away."
McCain returned to Arizona and will undergo physical therapy at the Mayo Clinic.
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