Dan Norwicki

The Arizona Republic

WASHINGTON — Amid continuing tensions with President Trump, Sen. John McCain on Wednesday announced he will oppose the confirmation of Rep. Mick Mulvaney as director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

Though McCain, R-Ariz., and Trump and feuded on and off for months — and have sparred on Twitter as recently as Wednesday morning — McCain has up to now supported all of Trump's nominees who have come up for Senate confirmation votes.

McCain's opposition to Mulvaney, R-S.C., largely stems from Mulvaney's past support of cuts to defense spending, particularly his 2011 vote to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and 2013 amendment to trim $3.5 billion from a defense appropriations bill, as well as Mulvaney's contribution to what McCain characterized as Capitol Hill's "dysfunction." In the House, Mulvaney was among the conservative Republicans who supported shutting down the government as a tactic in spending fights.

Mulvaney's poor record on national-security issues is at odds with Trump's promise to rebuilt the U.S. military, said McCain, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“My decision to oppose this nomination is not about one person," McCain said Wednesday afternoon on the Senate floor. "It's not about one Cabinet position. This is not personal. This is not political. This is about principle. This is about my conviction as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee that providing for the common defense is our highest constitutional duty, and that rebuilding our military must be the Number 1 priority of the Congress and the White House."

McCain said he generally gives deference and "the benefit of the doubt" to incoming presidents of both parties when it comes to their Cabinets and that "it is with great reluctance" that he is coming out against Mulvaney.

In at-times hard-hitting remarks — McCain at one point said a Mulvaney quote could only have come from "a person detached from the reality of what these cuts have made to military service members" — McCain gave Mulvaney's defense record a thrashing.

“I will vote to oppose Congressman Mulvaney’s nomination because it would be irresponsible to place the future of the defense budget in the hands of a person with such a record and judgment on national security," McCain added Wednesday.

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McCain said Mulvaney told him during his confirmation hearing that he did not remember his $3.5 billion amendment to cut the defense spending.

"I think anyone who treats our national defense with the seriousness it deserves would remember a vote like that," McCain said.

Additionally, it wound up costing U.S. taxpayers "billions" in new investment to fix the problem caused by military withdrawals from Europe that McCain said Mulvaney supported "in the name of spending money." As a result, the U.S. military presence in Europe was depleted when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and "was inadequate to the scale and scope of Russia's threat to our interests and our allies."

McCain's opposition to Mulvaney did not come out of the blue. Last month, McCain gave Mulvaney a tough time at a hearing over the same issues. And on Tuesday, McCain told reporters outside the Senate's GOP policy lunch that he was leaning toward opposing Mulvaney but hadn't made a final decision.

Mulvaney's confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate does not yet appear to be in jeopardy.

Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona's Republican junior senator, has signaled that he will support Mulvaney's confirmation.

Earlier this month, Flake tweeted that he was glad "fellow fiscal conservative" Mulvaney was making progress on his confirmation for the budget chief job.