'The party, I think, has got to be a lot more responsive to the plight of the people,' McCain said McCain predicts 'fed-up' 3rd party

Three years after losing his bid for the White House to President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is predicting the emergence of a third political party that he is dubbing the “Fed-Up Party.”

“Unless both parties change, then I think that it’s an inevitability. We aren’t doing anything for the people,” McCain said Tuesday at the Reuters Washington Summit.


Speaking about the American people’s frustrations over the state of the economy and the growing income disparity between the poor and the rich, the former presidential candidate, asked whether the third party would be left, right or center, responded, “I think a Fed-Up Party.”

But the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee didn’t go as far as to say he would rally behind this third party, saying he wants to “continue to complain about things” but adding, “I still haven’t given up on the Republican Party.”

McCain also warned his colleagues in his own party that they were not doing enough to address the concerns of struggling Americans.

“The party, I think, has got to be a lot more responsive to the plight of the people,” McCain said, according to Reuters. “I think we have to weigh in far more heavily on the side of things like reforming the Tax Code. If we reform the Tax Code, then many of these large corporations that paid no taxes last year … maybe they would.”

The Republican senator cast his doubts on whether the tea party could one day push their presidential candidate onto the national stage, saying, “The tea party was a movement, not an organization, as we know. And so they’ve kind of receded. There was never any permanency to them.”