John McCain will not cast his vote on the Republican tax overhaul this week, a process the No2 Senate Republican said he expected will happen on Tuesday.



Donald Trump confirmed reports the Arizona senator has gone home to spend the holidays with his family, after spending several days in hospital in Maryland because of side effects from his treatment for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The president, who called McCain’s wife Cindy on Friday, told reporters at the White House: “I understand he’ll come if we ever needed his vote, which hopefully we won’t. But the word is John will come back if we need his vote. It’s too bad. He’s going through very tough time, theres no question about it. But he will come back if we need his vote.”

John Cornyn earlier told ABC’s This Week he was “confident” the Senate would pass the tax cuts, “probably on Tuesday”. Without other absences or defections, McCain’s absence would not put the bill in danger. The GOP holds a 52-48 balance in the Senate, where the Democrat Doug Jones has not been seated since his shock win in the Alabama election. The Republican appointee Luther Strange remains in place.

Ben Domenech, a conservative writer who is McCain’s son-in-law, told CBS Face the Nation earlier on Sunday the 81-year-old was “in good spirits”.

“I’m happy to say that he’s doing well,” Domenech said. “The truth is that as anyone knows whose family has battled cancer or any significant disease that oftentimes there are side effects of treatment that you have. The senator has been through a round of chemo and he was hospitalized this week at Walter Reed.”

McCain and Trump have often been at odds, since Trump, who did not serve in Vietnam, criticised McCain for being captured during the war. Earlier this year, McCain made a dramatic return from treatment to cast a vote that helped defeat Republican healthcare repeal. However, he supported the tax bill that was pushed through the Senate despite Democratic protests.

That bill has been reconciled with the House version and potential Senate rebels came onside on Friday. Marco Rubio of Florida was satisfied on the issue of child tax credits. The self-professed budget hawk Bob Corker reversed his earlier opposition to a bill which independent analyses have said will add at least $1tn to the national debt over a decade.

Corker told the International Business Times on Saturday he did not read the bill before he announced he would back it.

On Sunday, Cornyn told ABC a provision added to the bill in conference that would likely be of financial benefit to Corker, Trump and other wealthy Republicans was part of the attempt to “cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed”. Corker told the IBT he had not been aware of the provision when he changed his vote.

Asked if the provision had been included specifically to win the Tennessee senator’s support, Cornyn said: “Well, the particular provision you’re talking about, honestly, is just one piece of a 1,000-page bill which is going to grow the American economy.”

Kevin Brady, the House of Representatives’ top tax writer, said he believed the bill would be on Trump’s desk before the end of the week.

“I think we are headed – the American people are headed – for a big win on Tuesday,” Brady told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “We’ve worked hard to make sure that those strange Senate rules don’t hang this up in any way. I am confident that’s the case.”

If passed, the bill would be the biggest US tax rewrite since 1986 and would provide Republicans and Trump with their first major legislative victory.

Democrats have been unified against the measure, calling it a giveaway to corporations and the rich that would drive up the federal deficit. The bill would cut the corporate income tax rate to 21% from 35% and create a 20% income tax deduction for owners of “pass-through” businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships – the provision which will benefit Corker and other real-estate millionaires.

Stock markets have been rallying for months in anticipation of sharply lower tax rates for corporations. Wall Street’s three major equities indexes closed at record highs on Friday.

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin told CBS on Sunday: “This is a historic event. People said we wouldn’t get this done. We’re on the verge of getting this done.”

Mnuchin told CNN’s State of the Union Trump had not spoken falsely when he said in September, “the rich will not be gaining at all with this plan”.

“The president was right,” Mnuchin said. “There are people who are rich people that are having their taxes going up.”

The Vermont independent senator Bernie Sanders told CBS the bill was “a real massive attack on the middle class”.