Well wishes come pouring in for John McCain

After Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced Wednesday night that he has been diagnosed with brain cancer, good wishes began coming in for the longtime senator from people of all political stripes.

Former President Barack Obama called McCain, his opponent in the 2008 presidential race, "an American hero and one of the bravest fighters I've ever known. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against. Give it hell, John." This sentiment was echoed by Vice President Mike Pence, who said cancer "picked on the wrong guy. John McCain is a fighter and he'll win this fight, too." McCain's fellow Arizona senator, Republican Jeff Flake, said he spoke with McCain and while it's a "tough diagnosis," McCain is an "even tougher man." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said McCain has "never shied from a fight," and he will "face this challenge with the same extraordinary courage that has characterized his life," while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told McCain he is a "true fighter and I'll be praying for you until you beat this. I know you will."

McCain's daughter, Meghan, tweeted a statement saying that her family is living "with the anxiety about what comes next," but it "won't surprise you to learn that in all this, the one of us who is most confident and calm is my father. He is the toughest person I know. The cruelest enemy could not break him. The aggressions of political life could not bend him. So he is meeting this challenge as he has every other. Cancer may afflict him in many ways, but it will not make him surrender. Nothing ever has."

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