WASHINGTON \u2014 Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain on Tuesday painted a dire picture of his relationship with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, saying it\u2019s worse than it was with Obama-era Defense Secretary Ash Carter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had a better working relationship, back and forth, with Ash Carter than I do with an old friend of 20 years,\u201d McCain said, referring to Mattis. He added that he has considered both Mattis and McMaster \u201cfriends of mine for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As McCain has waged a public battle with cancer, his penchant for asserting the Senate\u2019s powers to check and balance the executive branch has only grown. On Tuesday, McCain implied national security officials have seen his committee as a rubber stamp, and he is using his seat\u2019s powerful levers to conduct oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think they had this idea, once that Trump won, that we are a unicameral government,\u201d said McCain, R-Arizona, \u201cand we have to do what we have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Carter comparison says something, as Obama was McCain\u2019s frequent foil. In 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 DoD 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
It has appeared there might be a thaw in the senator\u2019s relationship with the Pentagon. McCain said he was receiving information from Mattis about his strategy for Afghanistan and the Islamic State fight\u2014and that he would not block a handful of Pentagon nominees from Senate floor votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, McCain was in a war of words with the commander in chief. While accepting the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia Monday night, McCain warned the United States against turning toward \u201chalf-baked, spurious nationalism\u201d \u2014 widely read as a repudiation of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump responded in a radio interview Tuesday, \u201cI\u2019m being very, very nice. But at some point I fight back, and it won\u2019t be pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, McCain told reporters, \u201cI\u2019m not interested in confronting the president, I\u2019m interested in working with the president.\u201d When a reporter asked whether the relationship was so bad that McCain would not support anything Trump approaches him with, McCain took it as a suggestion he would shirk his responsibilities and blew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy would you ask something that dumb, eh?\u201d McCain said. \u201cMy job as a United States senator from Arizona \u2014 which I was just re-elected to \u2014 you mean that I would somehow behave in a way that I would block everything because of some personal disagreement? That\u2019s a dumb question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this month, McCain said he would refuse to advance Trump\u2019s nominees to the Pentagon until he is satisfied the administration is communicating its plans for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As SASC chairman, he sets the schedule for DoD nomination hearings and as a senator, he may request a hold on any presidential nominee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been nearly two months since Trump announced a new strategy, criticized for its vagueness, that involves sending more U.S. troops to advise the Afghan military. The Defense Department has acknowledged that it has 11,000 forces on the ground, more than the 8,500 previously reported, and that it plans to send an additional 3,000-plus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, McCain told reporters he expects to receive soon some answers to questions on strategy and tactics that he has been waiting months to get. But he would not commit to advancing Trump\u2019s picks through his committee until he has the information he\u2019s been seeking in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate\u2019s 79-19 confirmation Tuesday of David Trachtenberg, Trump\u2019s choice for a deputy Pentagon post focused on defense policy, came about seven months after the nomination was announced. McCain said he did not block it because he was \u201cpartially satisfied with their commitment to provide us with answers to the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of Trachtenberg, who has experience in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, McCain said, \u201cI think he\u2019s qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SASC\u2019s top Democrat, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, said the way looks clear for other DoD nominees awaiting Senate votes, since the Senate is done with health care reform. John Gibson, the deputy chief management officer pick, Navy general counsel nominee Charles Stimson, and Owen West, Trump\u2019s choice for assistant defense secretary, have \u2015 like Trachtenberg \u2015 been waiting since July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reed was supportive of McCain\u2019s delaying actions as \u201cthe prerogative of the chairman\u201d to pursue details about Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea, saying, \u201cI would suggest not only for Sen. McCain\u2019s benefit, but the public\u2019s benefit, that it be made clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCain\u2019s frustration is, in part, rooted in fears the administration is unprepared to deal with the aftermath, should the Islamic State be defeated, highlighted by news Tuesday that U.S.-backed Syrian rebels have claimed to have taken Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS\u2019 so-called caliphate..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAgain, we will not sit by without having a complete understanding of what is going on,\u201d McCain said. \u201cRaqqa just fell. Who\u2019s going to take over? The Iranians are there, the Shiites. The whole situation is in chaos, as we predicted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, McCain said the committee is working with the administration on \u201ca whole lot of other issues,\u201d including the massive 2018 defense authorization bill. The House and Senate, as of Tuesday, are due to go to conference to reconcile their versions of the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain on Tuesday painted a dire picture of his relationship with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":51737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"4":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"5":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"6":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"7":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[8,160,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3446],"class_list":["post-53739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"XDTSTZL34FA2JGTVWJL37CVN4M","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2017\/10\/17\/mccain-says-he-is-on-the-rocks-with-mattis-and-mcmaster\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n