During his speech to the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivered a stinging rebuke of President Trump — without ever mentioning his name.
McCain began with a veiled critique of Trump’s “America first” approach.
Referring back to the Germans who founded the conference in the wake of World War II, McCain said they “did not assume the West would survive, because they had seen its near annihilation. They saw open markets give way to beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism, and the poverty that imposed. They saw a world order fracture into clashing ethnic and nationalist passions, and the misery that wrought.”
“From the ashes of the most awful calamity in human history was born what we call the West — a new, and different, and better kind of world order … one based not on blood-and-soil nationalism, or spheres of influence, or conquest of the weak by the strong, but rather on universal values, rule of law, open commerce, and respect for national sovereignty and independence,” he continued. “Indeed, the entire idea of the West is that it open to any person or any nation that honors and upholds these values.”
McCain went on to say that the founders of the conference would be alarmed by western nations’ “increasing turn away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism… by the hardening resentment we see toward immigrants, and refugees, and minority groups, especially Muslims… by the growing inability, and even unwillingness, to separate truth from lies… [and] that more and more of our fellow citizens seem to be flirting with authoritarianism and romanticizing it as our moral equivalent.”
“But what would alarm them most, I think, is a sense that many of our peoples, including in my own country, are giving up on the West… that they see it as a bad deal that we may be better off without… and that while Western nations still have the power to maintain our world order, it is unclear whether we have the will,” he added.
McCain also tried to create some daylight between Trump and members of his administration that come from the political or military establishment, saying:
I know there is profound concern across Europe and the world that America is laying down the mantle of global leadership. I can only speak for myself, but I do not believe that is the message you will hear from all of the American leaders who cared enough to travel here to Munich this weekend. That is not the message you heard today from Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. That is not the message you will hear from Vice President Mike Pence. That is not the message you will hear from Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly. And that is certainly not the message you will hear tomorrow from our bipartisan congressional delegation.
He then turned to taking veiled shots at Russia, and Trump’s recent dismissal of the idea that the United States is morally superior to Putin’s regime.
Referring to the “adversaries” of western countries, McCain said, “they have no meaningful allies, so they seek to sow dissent among us and divide us from each other.”
“They know that their power and influence are inferior to ours, so they seek to subvert us, and erode our resolve to resist, and terrorize us into passivity,” he said. “They know they have little to offer the world beyond selfishness and fear, so they seek to undermine our confidence in ourselves and our belief in our own values.”
McCain concluded by highlighting that international politics is not just about power — it’s also about morality.
“In the final analysis, the survival of the West is not just a material struggle; it is now, and has always been, a moral struggle,” he said. “Now more than ever, we must not forget this.”
The speech in Munich wasn’t the first time McCain has criticized Trump since he was sworn in. After McCain called Trump’s botched Yemen raid a “failure” earlier this month, Trump replied with a tweetstorm that said the war hero-turned-senator has “been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore.”
Following the abrupt departure of Michael Flynn from his role as Trump’s national security adviser earlier this week, McCain characterized the move as “a troubling indication of the dysfunction of the current national security apparatus.”
In a statement, McCain said Flynn’s departure “raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intention toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including statements by the President suggesting moral equivalence between the United States and Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, threats to our NATO allies, and attempted interference in American election.”
But McCain’s rhetoric hasn’t really translated to action. Before he voted against Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), Trump’s choice to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, McCain had voted to approve all of Trump’s nominees who came up for Senate confirmation votes.
McCain voted against Mulvaney on Thursday because Mulvaney has been a supporter of cutting military spending.