Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently suggested that young people were upset with the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations because they had forgotten about the September 11 terrorist attacks.

During an appearance Friday morning on the Dan Patrick Show, he said that the NBA was right to punish Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. He also dismissed concerns that the racist comments made by Sterling were recorded without his permission.

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“It’s the world we’re living in, you don’t like it, but everything I say I expect to be recorded,” McCain remarked. “It’s just the way we live. It is something you’ve got to accept. I don’t particularly like it, but it is what it is.”

The Arizona Republicans said many Americans wrongly believed that their telephone conversations were being recorded by the government, but he admitted the NSA had committed some surveillance abuses.

“Young people particularly are not happy,” he continued. “We’ve forgotten a little about 9/11, and how if we’d intercepted the right communications we might have prevented 9/11. But, anyway, it is what it is.”

Watch video below.