As Donald Trump has bumbled through the early stretch of his presidency, fingers have frequently pointed toward Republican establishment figures like Lindsey Graham and John McCain as the people who will prove instrumental in resisting the president from the right. McCain, especially, emerged for a time as a potential leader of the G.O.P. resistance—a title that he seemed happy to embrace, but that has increasingly earned him scrutiny. And on Tuesday night, when McCain sat across from Seth Meyers for his third guest spot on Late Night, it became painfully obvious why.
Meyers, who described McCain as a “friend” of the show, was certainly gentler on the Senator than he had been on, say, Kellyanne Conway, who appeared on Late Night shortly before the president’s inauguration and right after news broke that Russia allegedly had “compromising information” on the president. During that interview, Meyers did not let Conway get away with any spin, consistently needling her for real answers. When it came to McCain, though, Meyers took another oft-deployed journalistic approach: handing McCain some rope, and allowing him to do with it what he wished. And while the quotable Senator didn’t hang himself, he certainly didn’t do himself many favors, either.
When McCain praised Trump’s “outstanding” national security team and his response to sending cruise missiles into Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Meyers pointed out—in passing—that that team had previously included Michael Flynn. He also asked McCain if he worried that even when surrounded by the right people, Trump is either distracted or simply doesn’t listen to his advisors.
“Yes, I am very worried about that,” McCain said. “Because sometimes I see him do things or say things that—he isn’t listening to them. But I know that he respects them. And I know that he has pledged to rebuild our military, which is not in good shape now. So I think that you have to almost say, ‘Don’t pay so much attention to what he says as to what he does.’ Because I’m not going to react every time that the president makes some comment that I don’t agree with.”
McCain is a noted hawk—and by alluding to Trump’s pledge to rebuild the military, he seemed to reveal the hollow center of his resistance. Like so many other Republicans, it seems McCain’s cart is ultimately tethered to the president, for one reason: baffling as the majority of his actions may be, Trump is also offering McCain something he wants. Like Paul Ryan and his dystopian vision of healthcare, McCain sees a Trump presidency as one way to accomplish things he’s long yearned to achieve.
Further proof of that? When Meyers asked McCain about the president’s cruel proposed budget, the senator’s chief critique was that it “does not restore the military,” and that it makes cuts to the State Department. When Meyers offered McCain the chance to respond to the elements of the budget voters have most vocally opposed—its devastating cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and other protections for the poor, McCain neglected to offer an opinion—instead simply stating, “It’s dead on arrival.”
