The Senate, more than ever, is missing John McCain.

The chamber is considering a CIA nominee for whom the primary determining factor is her stance on torture, which McCain himself experienced for years in Vietnam as a prisoner of war. The Senate Armed Services Committee that he chairs is now crafting the annual defense bill, McCain’s top legislative priority. Senate Democrats are about to capitalize on his absence to jam through a proposal reinstating net neutrality policies.


And as McCain reflects on his own mortality in a new book and documentary, and in visits and telephone calls with friends, his longtime colleagues in the Senate say they already miss McCain’s dynamism, his eagerness to jump into every issue and his dark sense of humor.

“I ache for him. I think about him all the time,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who speaks with McCain regularly and wrote him a private note on Monday. “We love the guy.”

“The most important thing is to address his health and to recover. But he’s missed, I’ll put it that way. He’s missed now with everything that’s going on,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who visited McCain on Friday in Arizona. “He’s still engaged as much as he can, he’s obviously weak after surgery. It’s got to be frustrating to him.”

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Party officials are keeping one eye on an upcoming deadline that would allow Republicans to avoid a special election until 2020 if McCain leaves office after this month. But Republicans do not expect McCain to vacate his seat early as he battles brain cancer, senators said privately, and they are applying no pressure on him to make a retirement decision.

Senators had hoped he could return to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, but now are increasingly doubtful that he will return at all. The topic is taboo among senators.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) studiously avoids bringing up McCain’s health in party meetings, only impressing upon his leadership team that McCain’s absence makes the GOP Senate majority exceedingly narrow, according to an attendee.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) apologized to McCain this week after saying he did not expect McCain back in the Senate, writing him a letter in remorse.

“I kind of miss his fieriness and his desire to be in the middle of everything. He’ll go down in history as a wonderful senator,” Hatch said of his fellow octogenarian.

Republicans say they refuse to discuss the future of McCain’s Senate seat, which he was reelected to in 2016 even as President Donald Trump criticized him and he faced a primary opponent that repeatedly suggested McCain could not make it through a six-year term.

“He was elected to a six year term. And when he beats his cancer he’ll have another 4.5 years left,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said it would be “foolish” to try and persuade McCain to retire early as he battles the debilitating disease.

“That’s just something we’re not talking about out of respect for Sen. McCain,” said one Senate Republican.

A second Senate Republican said most senators hoped that if the seat becomes vacant, Cindy McCain will be chosen to succeed John McCain. Several Republican senators have been speaking to her during the senator's time recovering in Arizona.

Electoral politics aside, the impact of McCain’s absence can be felt on many levels in the Senate, where the testy Arizona senator has served since 1987. His personality might be the biggest in the chamber, and Republicans are fondly reminiscing on pointed exchanges with McCain that once seemed harsh.

Last year, as one top aide to McConnell tried to explain how a waiver for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was similar to one the Senate approved for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, McCain replied: “They’re not the same, you f---ing jerk!” according to a person who witnessed the exchange.

McCain’s prolonged absence is about to take on new prominence as his Armed Services panel takes up the NDAA with its chairman thousands of miles away. He’s been speaking with staff frequently about the bill in a bid to communicate his policy wishes to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is overseeing the panel in McCain’s absence.

“It will be particularly emotional in the [committee vote] if he’s not here,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a panel member. “If Sen. McCain lets his wishes be known, it will be powerful because I think members of that committee are going to be reluctant to not be supportive.”

Though both are staunch defense hawks, McCain and Inhofe have some clear-cut differences on defense issues and oversight of the Pentagon. The pair split over McCain's push to require women to register for a military draft. And Inhofe opposed McCain's attempt to kick off the first round of military base closures since 2005.

Inhofe said he and McCain are currently avoiding clashes over issues on which they differ and that McCain has not brought up the base closures or a program to privatize some military grocery stores, which McCain supports and Inhofe opposes. The bill is expected to reflect McCain's national security priorities, rather than Inhofe's, a McCain aide said.

“I only use those two examples to communicate to you how easy he has been to deal with on this,” Inhofe said. “He’s expressing his desires.”

Less clear is whether McCain will take a hard line on CIA nominee Gina Haspel. He sent her a series of questions in March about whether she oversaw waterboarding, whether she was ordered to destroy video tapes of harsh interrogations and if she supports declassifying the Senate’s 2014 torture report.

Haspel has responded to McCain and “gave a completely thorough and candid response to Sen. McCain’s questions,” according to Cotton. And McCain’s staff is poring over hundreds of pages of classified and unclassified documents about Haspel, the aide said.

That’s important because, even from afar, McCain is the rare senator who might be able to singlehandedly derail Haspel’s nomination if he strongly opposes it or encourages his colleagues to block it. Even a critical written statement from him could give skeptical Democrats and Republicans cover to oppose her.

“People would love to hear his voice and thoughts on this issue given that he’s for a strong intelligence agency and he’s been one of our leaders against torture. So his voice is really missed,” Schumer said.

McCain’s prolonged absence also means Republicans have essentially been down a Senate seat since December, giving McConnell a majority of 50-49. Republicans have bared down on confirming nominees given their divisions on the party’s legislative agenda, but each vote requires more unity than ever from a fractured GOP. Each senator has more leverage to hold out and get concessions from party leaders in return for their consequential vote.

“It’s made it harder for us to get things done,” said Cornyn, the GOP’s chief vote counter.

Later this week, Democrats will be able pass a measure overturning the Trump administration's rollback of net neutrality. Only a simple majority is needed under the Senate procedures being deployed, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is poised to vote with every Democrat despite complaints from Republicans about passing the measure in McCain’s absence.

If McCain were in Washington, he would likely vote to block the Democrats’ maneuver.

“It’s a fact of life that he’s not going to be here,” said Collins. “Regrettably.”

Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.