{"id":30745,"date":"2017-10-22T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2017\/10\/22\/boiling-point-mccain-frustrations-with-mattis-mcmaster-go-public\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:36:14","slug":"boiling-point-mccain-frustrations-with-mattis-mcmaster-go-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/congress\/2017\/10\/22\/boiling-point-mccain-frustrations-with-mattis-mcmaster-go-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Boiling point: McCain frustrations with Mattis, McMaster go public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Simmering tension between Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and the Trump administration\u2019s national security team over information sharing, the defense budget and Pentagon appointments boiled into public view last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the gatekeeper for President Donald Trump\u2019s Defense Department nominees and the prime mover for the Senate\u2019s massive defense policy bill, McCain is too powerful a friend for the Pentagon to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His message had instant impact, with both Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster making the effort to meet with the Arizona Republican in person last week. But analysts say the rift is already affecting major budgeting and policy decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCain wants more vocal support from Mattis as he calls for budgets to advance a large-scale military buildup. McCain needs ammunition as he\u2019s been publicly linking defense budget caps to recent mishaps in which dozens of troops were hurt or killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core of McCain\u2019s complaint with Trump\u2019s national security team is it wants the Senate as a rubber stamp and not a coequal branch of government. \u201cI think they had this idea, once that Trump won, that we are a unicameral government,\u201d McCain said, \u201cand we have to do what we have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strains came into public view last week when McCain told reporters the administration is keeping him in the dark about an ambush in Niger that killed four service members. This was a symptom of deeper problems, that the communication was better with the Obama administration\u2019s defense secretary, Ash Carter, than with longtime friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very close to these people, we converse all the time,\u201d McCain said. \u201cWe are just not getting the information in a timely fashion that we need. Talk is cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting answers, McCain said, \u201cmight require a subpoena.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McMaster, after meeting with McCain, told reporters that the senator\u2019s comments \u201churt my feelings\u201d and pledged better communication with the chairman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a problem we can solve,\u201d said McMaster, who in August received backing<\/a> from McCain against a wave of criticisms from the far-right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about McCain\u2019s comments, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White downplayed tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would say that we have done all we can and we will continue to strive to do as much as we can to ensure that Sen. McCain and all the members of the SASC and the [House Armed Services Committee] have exactly what they need when they need it,\u201d she said Oct. 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A history of tension<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCain\u2019s Carter comparison was tough talk. In President Barack Obama\u2019s final year in office, McCain jousted with Carter and the administration over the defense budget, his reform efforts and his slow-rolling of Defense Department nominees. At one point, McCain vented over a frayed relationship between Congress and the Pentagon\u2019s civilian leadership when Carter denied McCain a courtesy preview of the 2017 Pentagon budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though McCain has a history of tension with past defense secretaries, Mattis\u2019 unique reliance on a close-knit group of advisers, rather than the broader expertise of the department, may have caused him problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is unique here is Secretary Mattis is, so far, really set up poorly for managing his ties to Congress,\u201d said Loren DeJonge Schulman, a former Department of Defense and National Security Council official under Obama, who is now with the Center for a New American Security. \u201cHis relationships with McCain and others should, by necessity, be very different than when he was at [U.S. Central Command].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe is lacking a full team that can both ease the burden of interfacing with key members and highlight to him when an issue on the Hill really demands his attention before it gets out of hand, like McCain\u2019s earlier commitment to hold up nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd by all accounts, his front office, who he\u2019s had to rely on in the absence of confirmed appointees, has little of that political sense and have on occasion really elevated tensions with the Hill just when they needed their support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t