Ryan Lizza talked to John McCain, who, unsurprisingly, hates Donald Trump and likes Lindsey Graham. Somewhat less surprisingly, he mocks Marco Rubio. McCain was among the Republicans who supported the Rubio-led comprehensive immigration-reform plan. “Rubio backed away from it,” McCain notes, pouring on the mockery:
McCain licked his finger, held it up in the air, and laughed.
“You know that old song from before you were born?” McCain said, speaking of the Bob Dylan classic “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Of course McCain also backed away from Rubio’s immigration bill. And that’s not all! In 2006, he sponsored a comprehensive immigration bill, and then when it interfered with his chance to win the Republican nomination, declared he would no longer support his own bill. Here’s McCain during a January, 2008 Republican debate:
MS. HOOK: Senator McCain, let me just take the issue to you, because you obviously have been very involved in it. During this campaign, you, like your rivals, have been putting the first priority, heaviest emphasis, on border security. But your original immigration proposal back in 2006 was much broader and included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are already here.
What I’m wondering is, and you seem to be downplaying that part, at this point, if your original proposal came to a vote in the Senate floor, would you vote for it?
SEN. MCCAIN: It won’t. It won’t. That’s why we went through the debate.
MS. HOOK: I know, but what if it did?
SEN. MCCAIN: No, I would not, because we know what the situation is today.
Renouncing your own immigration bill to run for president was McCain’s thing. McCain’s mocking Rubio because he’s the immigration flip-flopping hipster.
