Senator John McCain sharply disagreed with President Donald Trump reportedly telling Russian Former Minister Sergey Lavrov that former FBI Director James Comey was a ‘nut job,’ saying he didn’t understand the rationale for the comments and was incensed Lavrov was in the Oval Office in the first place.
“I’m almost speechless, because I don’t know why someone would say something like that,” McCain said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
The New York Times reported last Friday that Trump talked to Lavrov at the White House the day after he decided to fire Comey. Trump reportedly said the former FBI Director was a “nut job” and firing him eased the pressure from the investigation into Russian interference in the election, which Comey had confirmed the FBI was investigating.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” the Times reported Trump told Lavrov, citing a document from an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
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And aside from the conversation, McCain said he was also angry that Trump had invited Lavrov to visit the White House.
“He’s acted in the most thuggish and outrageous fashion and he had no business in the Oval Office,” McCain said. “Not this stooge Lavrov, who is nothing but a propagandist.”
McCain, who was one of the only Republicans to call for a special committee to investigate Russian election interference prior to the Department of Justice appointing a special prosecutor, has continually voiced opposition to the Trump administration’s actions.
He reiterated Sunday that he thought Trump’s decision to fire Comey wasn’t a smart one following his statements last week that the latest wave of Trump scandals reached “Watergate size and scale.”
“It’s a challenge to Washington, D.C., the way we do business, a challenge to bipartisanship and a challenge to the effectiveness of the president,” McCain said during the Fox interview Sunday.