Arizona senator laments return of ‘old fears and animosities’ in new book and has no regrets about giving Steele dossier to Comey

Republicans are on the “wrong side” of the immigration debate, John McCain says in a forthcoming memoir, published as he has retreated to his ranch in Arizona but is still delivering blunt assessments in Washington.

On Wednesday night, McCain tweeted that the attitude to torture of Gina Haspel, the nominee to become head of the CIA, whose confirmation is in the balance after a bruising Senate hearing earlier in the day, was “disturbing … and disqualifying”. He called on the Senate to reject Haspel’s nomination.

John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country & has devoted her professional life to its service & defense. However, her role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing & her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying. https://t.co/ocDtdqU2Sx

McCain, who has undergone treatment for brain cancer, cast the decisive vote to sink Donald Trump’s effort to scrap Barack Obama’s flagship healthcare legislation last summer. But he has not returned to Washington since December, and it is unclear if he will be present to vote on Haspel’s confirmation.

In his new book, the ailing senator continues his eleventh-hour comeback as the career rebel on Capitol Hill.

The question of immigration has long set him apart from his Republican colleagues, but he writes in The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations that the party will change “when the politics for them change”.

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“Right now, Republicans are on the wrong side of that progress,” McCain continues, “and if we want to retain our competitiveness in the fastest-growing communities in the country we’ll stop letting the zealots drive the debate, and fix the problems that [give] them their soapbox.”

The passage on immigration articulates the Arizona senator’s disagreement with Donald Trump’s nationalistic, “America First” view of the world. McCain argues that immigration is a pillar of “American exceptionalism” while Trump has touted a crackdown on undocumented immigrants and sought to restrict legal immigration.



In the book McCain implores Republicans to reject conservatives who fear America is being “contaminated by the customs of non-European immigrants”.



“They’re still a small fraction in the Republican party. But they’re the ones getting all the attention right now. They need to be confronted, not ignored or winked at or quietly dismissed as kooks,” McCain writes. “They need to be confronted before their noxious views spread further and damage for generations the reputation of the Republican party.”

McCain co-authored the Restless Wave with his longtime collaborator Mark Stalter. The Guardian obtained an early copy of the book, which is to be published on 22 May. An HBO documentary on his life will air on 28 May.

The book offers a wide-ranging appraisal of his own career, one marked by unrealized presidential ambitions and a lofty view of America on the international stage.

Written in McCain’s plain-spoken, occasionally brusque manner, the senator and Vietnam war veteran admits that “a stage 4 cancer diagnosis acts as ungentle persuasion” to acknowledge that his current term in the Senate will be his last. The result, he writes, is that “I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much”.

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Throughout the book McCain offers candid analysis of some of his most controversial positions, including his support for the Iraq war and, more recently, his decisive vote against a Republican bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act.

McCain also defended his decision to pass on to the then FBI director, James Comey, a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence Christopher Steel containing unverified claims that the Russian government had compromising material on Trump.

“I did what duty demanded I do,” McCain says of alerting the FBI. He continues: “I discharged that obligation, and I would do it again. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell.”

And he expresses regret for not choosing Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-Independent and a close friend, to be his running mate, calling the decision “another mistake that I made”. Instead, he says he listened to his advisers, and chose Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor and Tea Party favorite who critics say paved the way for Trump-style politics.

McCain reserves space for assessing America’s political leaders. Though he is fiercely critical of Obama’s foreign policy and writes that he had heated disagreements with all six presidents who held office while he served on Capitol Hill, McCain saves perhaps his harshest criticism for Trump’s leadership.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Senator John McCain meets President-elect Barack Obama in Chicago after losing the 2008 election to him. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

“It’s hard to know what to expect from President Trump, what’s a pose, what’s genuine,” McCain writes.

“He has declined to distinguish the actions of our government from the crimes of despotic ones,” he continues. “The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.”

Trump and McCain have had a strained relationship since the early stages of the 2016 campaign when Trump said McCain, who was tortured and held for more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison, was not a war hero.

“I like people who weren’t captured,” said Trump, who received five draft deferments, including one for bone spurs on his feet. After a 2005 Access Hollywood video of Trump bragging about sexually harassing women, McCain said he would not support Trump for president.

Friends of the ailing senator have reportedly told the White House that McCain does not want Trump at his funeral, and would instead like Mike Pence to attend, according to the New York Times. Barack Obama and George Bush are expected to be eulogists, the report said.