McCain: 'We are going through a period of turmoil politically' The senator adds: 'There’s no reason to attack Republicans. We’ve got enough people to attack them.'

The current social and political climate in the U.S. is akin to the 1930s, Sen. John McCain said in an interview broadcast Thursday morning, likening the nation’s current status to that of the years leading up to World War II.

“We are going through a period of turmoil politically, obviously. We are seeing in many ways, the 1930s: the isolationism, the America-firsters,” McCain (R-Ariz.) told NBC’s Tom Brokaw on the network’s “Today” show. “Now, maybe some of the causes are different, but the fact is we are seeing the United States become much more insular and inward.”


While the two men are both Republicans, the policies advocated by McCain have often clashed with those backed by President Donald Trump, who won the White House on an “America first” platform that has translated into a dramatic shift of the U.S. presence on the world stage. McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has long been considered one of the Senate’s top hawks and has long advocated for the U.S. to be a major player in world affairs.

McCain told Brokaw that “the role of the press is more important than ever before,” a seeming rebuke of the president’s regular attacks against the media, which he believes covers him unfairly. “I hate the press, OK? But the fact is, without a free press in this country, a pillar of democracy is destroyed,” the senator said.

The conflict between Trump and McCain has at times become personal, with the Arizona senator suggesting during last year’s campaign that the president had encouraged the “crazies” of his state and Trump retorting that McCain was not a war hero because he had been a POW during the Vietnam War, and “I like people who weren’t captured.”

Asked what advice he would give the president, McCain reiterated that Trump should “stop tweeting” but added that he would also tell the president, “look, there’s no reason to attack Republicans. We’ve got enough people to attack them.”