John McCain Thinking Quotations

Parents are not the all-knowing, ideal people we would like you to think we are. We've made wrong choices before, and will again, like everyone else, .. But our mistakes are not the measure of our love for you. You are that measure, and how well you are prepared to make better choices than we have made.

The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.

I'm not surprised that Governor Dean would oppose [the $87 billion to fund Iraq reconstruction].... I've lost confidence that he has any understanding of the national security responsibilities of a President... [b]ecause I don't believe that he has any understanding of the international role that the United States has to play in the world. I think it's a kind of a pseudo-isolationism that appeals to the base of the caucus voters. I do not believe that particularly in the case of Iraq that Governor Dean has any fundamental understanding of what's at stake here.

I think it's a very legitimate aspect of American life to criticize and to disagree and to debate. But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them-I said, 'Did-were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

I think that it has to be a very humane approach to this issue, and we have to come up with solutions to it. But we also have to do something about the drugs that are coming across our southern border that are killing our kids... I think there are some people who want to leave this country and return to the country they came from, but obviously it requires a broader solution that that, and we all know that.

Americans want to win; bin Laden thinks he's winning now.

I have said for a long time that I thought the president would be best served if the attorney general resigned so I think it's the right thing to do.

I think [social media] is fundamentally restructuring the whole nature of information and how it's expressed in America.

Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. To deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think does a great disservice...the progress has been immense.

We send cruise missiles and then we think everything's all right or we try to bring them to trial. My friends, this time they've gone too far. This time we're serious. This time we won't quit until they are gone, completely gone from the face of the earth

Well, I don't think it is amnesty to start with. Second of all, what do you want to do with them? That is the question in response and third of all, it is a tough path to citizenship, you have to pay back tax and learn English and have to have a clear record and get to the back of the line behind to the people who have come here legally or waiting legally. So, i just reject that.

I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together.

I think that when you look at the great politicians, the two greatest in my view were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, they certainly had character traits. You also know Abraham Lincoln overcame severe depression problems that he had when he was younger, which gave him the strength and the character later on.

I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money.

I don't think we are comforted by the fact that we were told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States and obviously that's not correct

The question is not whether you would like to be president or not. The question is: Do you think you can win and do you want to run? And none of those are clear to me.

I think there [are] great economies that can be made starting with a round of base closings, ... I want the president to veto these pork-barrel spending bills which have grown to incredible obscene levels. I believe there are a number of weapons systems that have to be eliminated.

They're all tied together: taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and the debt. We've got to have a setting of priorities, and looking at it - at each of them as disconnected, I think, doesn't properly address these major challenges.

I think the American people should know there's already strong influences toward another deployment of American troops in an open-ended commitment.

I think my major challenge, very frankly, is to maintain the traction, ... I've seen many campaigns here in the state of New Hampshire look good for a while, and then the air comes out of the balloon.

I spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps. Do you think I want to do that all over again as vice president of the United States? ... The vice president has two duties: One is to break a tie in case of a tie vote in the United States Senate .. the other is to inquire daily as to the health of the president. Neither one of those are very challenging as compared with living a good part of time in the state of Arizona.

I just think that we ought to protect the Social Security fund.

I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history. We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement - that's the kindest word I can give you - of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war.

I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist.

I think I am becoming incapable of being too surprised. But it just makes me sad and sick.

I think we also ought to prepare the American public, by way of informing them, that Saddam Hussein has these weapons, continues to attempt to improve their capability, and would not be reluctant to export them to other countries, ... So he presents a clear and present danger.

I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

I think that Joe Biden is qualified in many respects. But I do point out that he's been wrong on many foreign policy and national security issues, which is supposed to be his strength.

I respect Sarah Palin. I appreciate her and her husband enormously. I think she will continue to play a major role in the future of the Republican Party.

I think, again, neither of these candidates [Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton] is blowing me away. Actually, I would like both of them to get more policy specific.

[Vladimir] Putin supporting Bashar al-Assad, helping with the Syrian refugee crisis and, I think for any republican, he [Donald Trump] has got to stop saying this, because I was with him. I was with him and he said that, it was like, I'm out. I'm out. It's too crazy.

I think where [Donald Trump] loses most hawkish republicans is when he talking about how much he likes [Vladimir] Putin. That should make any person who believe in the American exceptionalism, incredibly uncomfortable.

Our economy, I think, is still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

I, 100 percent don't think that's where the American people at, because when there's viral pictures as a baby is in Aleppo with, you know, rubble all over them going viral, and then there are celebrities tweeting why haven't we done nothing about this? And like, oh, there are actually many people for years who've been trying to send aid then and this president won't let us.

I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side. But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

I actually think if the American people understood what was going on instead of just being told tidbits by this administration, they would actually be a lot more supportive of the boots on the ground.