John McCain suggests a bipartisan compromise must be reached on health care
Sen. John McCain suggested Tuesday that Republicans and Democrats should try and reach a compromise on health care together if they want to get something done.
“When the Democrats rammed through Obamacare, they did it on a strict partisan basis. We did not include the Democrats in negotiations on Obamacare. The issue is not going away,” the Arizona Republican said in an interview on “CBS This Morning.”
“We’ve got to go back and address this issue on a bipartisan basis and we can’t wait until people are without health care,” he added. “We’ve got to have some bipartisanship around here, otherwise we’re not going to get much done.”
Republicans failed last week to rack up enough votes for a White House-backed measure to repeal and replace Obamacare. Democrats, who were united against the legislation, have said they’d like to improve on Obamacare in coordination with their GOP counterparts.
During the interview, McCain was asked about whether the decision for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-California, to view highly classified information on White House grounds last week was appropriate.
“I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do,” said McCain, who has advocated for the creation of a select committee. “I’ve been around for quite a while and I’ve never heard of any such thing.”
Asked if Nunes should recuse himself from the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, McCain said that should be up to Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, but he said something has to change.
“There’s no doubt that it’s dominating the news. It is an issue of most importance and something’s got to change. Otherwise the whole effort in the House of Representatives will lose credibility,” he said.
McCain said it’s hard for him to predict what more will come out of the investigation, but he said, “I think there is more information out there. There is more ties to Russia. There is more engagement with false information. There is a lot more associated with Russian attempts to affect America.”
He said he wants President Trump to impose “more sanctions on Russia,” to provide lethal defensive capabilities to Ukraine, expand the military presence in the Balkans and counter the propaganda by the Russians.