John McCain Quotes

By vetoing this legislation, the Defense authorization bill, let's be clear what the President is saying no to. He is saying no to pay increases and more than 30 types of bonuses and special pays for service members, saying no to more portability of military health plans and greater access to urgent care facilities for troops and their families, saying no to enhanced protection against military sexual assault, saying no to significant reforms to a 70-year-old military retirement system that would extend retirement benefits to over 80 percent of service members, saying no to the most sweeping reforms to our defense acquisition system in nearly 30 years, saying no to a ban on torture once and for all, saying no to $300 million in lethal assistance for the Ukrainians to defend themselves against Russian aggression, and saying no to countless other important provisions that are greatly needed to combat the growing threats we see around the world today. Perhaps, most importantly, the President of the United States is refusing to sign a bill at a time when--as our top military commanders and national security experts have testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee--the world has not seen greater turmoil since the end of World War II. So, my friends, here is the context. Thanks to the President's failed policies, the results of leading from behind, the results of a policy of "Don't do stupid stuff," we now see a world in a state of turmoil--the likes of which we have not seen since the end of World War II.

You have at hand many examples of good character from whom you will have learned the lessons by which you can live your own lives. You are blessed. Make the most of it.

I'm glad whenever they cut interest rates, I wish interest rates were zero.

Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man.

We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously. I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.

Congress will return from recess next week facing continued gridlock as we lurch from one self-created crisis to another. We are proving inadequate not only to our most difficult problems but also to routine duties. Our national political campaigns never stop. We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important. That’s not how we were meant to govern. Our entire system of government — with its checks and balances, its bicameral Congress, its protections of the rights of the minority — was designed for compromise. It seldom works smoothly or speedily. It was never expected to.

Demographics aren’t destiny. Our culture isn’t the work of one race or religion. To suggest otherwise is to contradict our ideals and to doubt their power.

We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong. I was wrong. And eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. I'd remind you we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

The legislation the President vetoed today authorizes the overall amount for defense that he requested, every single dollar of it. By making clear that he will "not fix defense without fixing non-defense spending," the President of the United States puts defense and the men and women in the military on the same level as the IRS. The President is using our military--using our military--as leverage to fight a battle that the Defense authorization bill cannot accomplish. At a time of mounting threats around the world, it is disgraceful. It is disgraceful the President would refuse to authorize for our troops the resources they need to prepare for and engage in vital missions around the world and that deliver some of the most significant reforms to the Pentagon in more than 30 years.

We are now making nice--and I will talk a little bit more about it later--with Bashar al-Assad and their stewards, the Russians and the Iranians. Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad is buying oil from--at least $1.5 million a day--from ISIL. Even as an Oval Office speech and a Pentagon photo op failed to reassure the American people, this administration has doubled down on its indecisive approach to ISIL, using limited means and indirect ways to achieve aspirational ends on a nonexistent timeline. The administration now admits we are at war with ISIL--wonderful--but proceeds at every turn to minimize any American role in fighting and winning that war. America has never waged anything we have called to war and then so profoundly limited our role in the hope that some other force will emerge to win it for us. The administration says we cannot "Americanize" the conflict.

While I suppose this means I’ll spend this Easter in Sedona rather than Siberia, I couldn’t be more proud of being sanctioned by Vladimir Putin for standing up for freedom and human rights for the Russian people and against Putin’s deadly aggression in Ukraine. I will never stop my efforts to support democracy, free speech, and the rule of law in Russia,

Let's get this straight. Assad will be tolerated to continue to barrel bomb and slaughter innocent people. "However unpalatable his conduct of the war..." This kind of Orwellian understatement not only obscures the truth, but it cripples the conscience. My friends, it cripples the conscience. Bashar Assad's conduct of the war, the barrel bombs, chemical weapons, slaughtering women and children, not only killed one-quarter of a million people, it is what gave rise to ISIL to start with, and it is what fuels them still. Secretary Kerry seems not to understand that fact. While in Moscow searching for "common ground" with Russia on Syria and Ukraine, Secretary Kerry said--and I am not making this up; I am telling my colleagues, I am not making this up--"Russia has been a significant contributor to the progress" the world has made on Syria.

I’m sure there are legions of committed national security officials working hard to figure out how to combat his cyberattacks, his disinformation campaigns, and his possible, even likely, effort to hack into our voting machines. But President Trump seems to vary from refusing to believe what Putin is doing to just not caring about it. Just last November he appeared to take Putin’s denials at face value. “There’s nothing ‘America First,’ ” I pointed out, “about taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community.” And some House Republicans investigating Russian interference seem more preoccupied with their own conspiracy theories than with a real conspiracy by a foreign enemy to defraud the United States. Unless the elected leaders of our government provide persistent direction and leadership and resources to officials working to defend our democracy, we won’t stop Putin’s next assault. With a nominal investment of resources, and a bold disregard for our resistance, Putin’s interference in our last election achieved all his objectives. He damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but that wasn’t his most important priority. Encouraging our government’s dysfunction, and disaffection and distrust in the polity were his main objectives. He sees evidence of his success every day in our polarization and gridlock.