John McCain is mad Donald Trump 'fired up the crazies'

(Image credit: Allison Shelley/Getty Images)

published 16 July 2015

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is more than a little annoyed that 2016 GOP candidate Donald Trump "fired up the crazies" in Phoenix during another undocumented immigrant rant.

"It's very bad," McCain told The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. "This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me, because what he did was he fired up the crazies."

McCain was also more than ready to dish about another Republican frontrunner he's known to butt heads with — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

I noted that Rubio, like many other Republican politicians, has been hard to follow on the [immigration] issue and no longer supports the compromise approach that the Gang of Eight took in 2013: combining a pathway to citizenship and tough new border measures in a single bill. McCain licked his finger, held it up in the air, and laughed."You know that old song from before you were born?" McCain said, speaking of the Bob Dylan classic, "Subterranean Homesick Blues." "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." [The New Yorker]

Read all of McCain's cheeky quotes at The New Yorker.

Explore More

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.