Getty Images

Before getting upset about something President-elect Donald Trump has said, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he waits to see if he actually means it. "I do not respond to every comment by the president-elect because it may be reversed the next day," McCain said Monday in an interview with Reuters.

McCain's comment was prompted by a question about Trump's suggestion Sunday that the U.S. should not have to adhere to the longstanding "one China" policy, which recognizes Taiwan as a province of the mainland rather than as an independent nation. "I fully understand the 'one China' policy," Trump said on Fox News Sunday, "but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade."

While an angry Beijing certainly took Trump's comment seriously, McCain said Monday that no one should "leap to conclusions" about Trump actually ditching the diplomatic norm of a unified China, which China's Foreign Ministry has described as "the political bedrock for the development [of] U.S.-China relations."