John McCain: Putin is a greater threat than ISIS

Source: The Hill

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Monday that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a greater threat to the world than ISIS.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7:30,” McCain said Putin is the "premier and most important threat, more so than ISIS.”

"I think ISIS can do terrible things," McCain said. "But it's the Russians who tried to destroy the fundamental of democracy and that is to change the outcome of an American election.”

McCain said while he has seen “no evidence” that Moscow successfully influenced the American presidential election, he noted that the Russians “tried, and are still trying.”

“They’re still trying to change elections,. They just tried to affect the outcome of the French election,” he added.

McCain slammed the Trump administration's response to Russia’s attempts to influence the U.S. election, and is calling for sanctions.

"We have done nothing since the election last November to respond to Vladimir Putin's attempt to change the outcome of our elections. So, way to go Vladimir. We haven't responded at all," McCain said.

The Republican senator also addressed recent reports that President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner attempted to set up a secret line of communications with Russia before Trump took office.

"I know some administration officials are saying this is standard procedure. I don't think it's standard procedure prior to the inauguration of the president of the United States by someone who is not in an appointed position,” he said. "This is becoming more and more bizarre. In fact, you can't make it up."

McCain also said that Trump’s unpredictability makes him “nervous from time to time.”

“I do believe that the President has great confidence in this national security team. I do believe most of the time that he accepts their advice and counsel,” he said. "Can I tell you that he does all the time? No. Does it bother me? Yes, it bothers me.”

I honestly don't know which is worse at this point.

Both are a problem. Apologists for the Russia mess because they voted for Donnie Dumb ass don't know how insidious a threat Russia is.

The US sent CIA death squads to shot up 'communist' who opposed democracy in Latin America in the 1980's. Talk about swaying elections...

Mccain went senile 10 years ago. I stopped paying attention to him.

@playmynutz: I feel like that is something people either aren't aware of or don't want to talk about because...democracy!

@n64dd: Pretty much this.

I would say Mccain is worse.

And Mccain is a hypocrite of the worst kind, America has done far worse than what supposedly russia has done.

But typical politician who hates the truth.

He's right about that, but Christian conservatives, Republicans, and Americans with guns are still the greatest threat this nation faces.

It's too bad, the US "needs" more republicans and conservatives like McCain--people that work across the isle, talk to their counterparts, are not extremist like Trump and his cohorts--but McCain has just jumped the shark, so to speak.

I'm not sure what is going on with McCain, maybe he is just looking back on his life and seeing a career wasted on conservative politics, maybe his age is catching up with his mind, but he seems to be opening his mouth a lot more lately and it just does not sound right.

McCain comes from an era of Cold War politics, and those are hard habits to shake. He has a lot of counterparts in Russia that are guilty of the same thing as well (Putin, for example, though Putin has transitioned to a post-Cold War world much better) and I just think we need 10-20 more years until these old timers, errrrrm...."retire".

And why we talking about Russia and ISIS? America's biggest enemy is itself.

Damn, you voted for a senile man 10 years ago. You got problems, bro.

Isn't that cute, ignoring a problem because of your fake little "team" which loves to ignore facts.

McCain certainly has a point, ISIS was never able to influence an election of the most powerful Nation and continue to cause havok WITHIN that actual nation up until today. He's been trying to control politics of several countries before and after this election.

But is Putin worse? Not sure. Depends on the extent of the success of this extreme worldwide political puppetry.

P.S. n64dd is a fakeboy, you just got played.

What did he say that was untruthful about Russia? Republicans have let old Puty cuck them for months now while the world laughs. Guess the "tough manly" party just ended up being a bunch of limp wristed puppets.

The only people who hate the truth seem to be those who denied Russian interference. That would be many people on the right, included many frequently proven false posters here....who I'm wondering might be some of those payed Russian internet trolls that the entire American intelligence apparatus told us about in March.

Of course he is. ISIS wants to create fear. Putin works differently. He will seize control where he can with minimal effort and work to tip the scales in his favor in other countries.

I did not mean he was untruthful about Russia, i meant the truth in general.

Also i never said the russians did not hack and release documents, its just funny to hear how hypocritical the left is, you and others celebrated Snowden and Manning , who did the exact same thing as Russian hackers are supposed to have done. Released truthful documents. Not to mention the media´s celebrating Buzzfeed who release fake news about Trump and Russia.

So i can´t see any problem, Russia just did a Wikileaks and because the left lost out, it´s suddenly a huge problem.

Were Snowden and Manning foreign agents trying to influence an election? No, they were not - so it is not "the exact same thing".

Yet again Jacanuk posts something intellectually brain dead that falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. Not even a child would claim Snowden/Manning is the exact same as the DNC hacks.

You guys are right. Russia is definitely the problem here instead of the people cutting off heads and promoting terror globally.

If Putin is such a great threat, why was Obama secretly buds with the guy?

And then praised for it?

Sounds like posturing that dummies fall for. Only dummies listen to John McCain.

Its kind of funny how similar Hillary and McCain are. Their response to everything is "bomb them" or "regime change", more often than not, both.

This Russia shit has to stop. Its not the 1970s and 80s anymore, we worked out most of our issues with Russia when goddamn Yeltsin was in office and had been working with them politically and as businesses since. WTF is wrong with these people pretending like we went from 1981 to 2016? Theyre a world power, im sure they did plenty of spying and attempted small manipulations here and there... thats what world powers do, its what china does, its what America is very very very good at, Its what Britain does, and im sure India will be on that international list soon enough. The best we can really do is counter intelligence and attempt to halt any majorly bad situations.

Its shocking how willingly dumb democratic voters or supporters from this last election have been on these subjects. They've actually managed to mirror the GOP in the bush years (on the specific topic of Russia, more so RR years)... congratulations.

@kod: It's shocking how little you actually understand Russia.

Amen!

It is uninformed people like you who are the greatest threat to this country.

Hillary, Podesta,and Obama sure liked them. Hillary gave them 20% of our uranium. Podesta served on the board of a Company that was controlled by the Russians. Podesta and Hillary received a good bit of money from the Russians for their efforts.

I am getting so fucking tired of hearing about Russia in the news all the time. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended 55 years ago.

When one sounds like McCain, it is no wonder Hillary Clinton lost. Putin is by no means a great guy, but the incessant fearmongering over him is getting tiring, and quite frankly, ridicilous at this point. Even during the election, at most he did was to have some things Hillary said leaked. But these things would never have been a problem in the first place if Hillary never said them. And even then, looking at the way Trump has been acting. It is extremely unlikely the russians had any involvement.

Trump has been more or less acting against Putin since he got into power.

17 Intelligence Agencies and the Senate Intel Committee said otherwise. Multiple times. And they are doing it to multiple countries, disrupting or attempting to disrupt the Democratic process.

This is very bad.

Expect to keep seeing it in the news, as it is a huge deal globally.

When they can prove it I will believe them.

Innocent until proven guilty, is something I strongly believe in.

Why is it "extremely unlikely? that they had any involvement?

What would they gain from adding one person who will oppose them vs another person who also oppose them, it was a lose-lose scenario. If anything they would probably have gone with Bernie Sanders instead, since that guy was much more likely to actually be an isolationist. Not to mention the extreme risk, to the PR and foreign relations by pulling off a stunt like this.

It just doesnt seem like a viable strategy.

The most involvement I could see from Russia would be propaganda via RT.

That's classified information, literally. The findings of these agencies ARE the sources you cite as the data/proof.

Senate intelligence committee leaders have received reports that Russia hired at least 1,000 trolls to spread fake news stories to hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clintonduring the presidential election.

This is just one example. You expect them to release classified reports by the fbi/cia/hls in detail? That isn't how this works. The proof/source IS the Committee's final disseminated data that they present to the public.

You said it's extremely unlikely based off of nothing, but the entire intelligence apparatus of multiple countries (including USA) says otherwise. I know who I believe.

2 hours+ of this,

Feel free to offer any counter for these testimonies.

@JimB: oh, really? Americans with guns murder 10,000 other Americans every single year. How many Americans do Muslims kill every year? How many in the last decade? Maybe 200. To make things worse Christian conservatives poison government with their nonsensical magical beliefs, fight to allow thousands to die every years of easily treatable diseases, and constantly push to make it easier for those Americans with guns to carry even more guns with which to shoot other Americans..

Muslims don't hold a candle to Christian conservatives when it comes to being a danger to Americans,

Anyway STFU. You're constantly getting pwnt by simple facts. No one could ever take you seriously

It's refreshing to read some common sense in here.

@tjandmia: Agreed wholeheartedly. Bubba with a dozen guns, thousands of bullets, voices in his head who thinks is "god", and a total disconnect from reality is the biggest danger to The States.

Pretty much a sure bet the Russia did have involvement. Not sure why you want to ignore what the intelligence agencies have said. And it is important to find out how involved this administration is with Russia. Foreign governments should not be allowed to interfere in our elections. It surprises me that Americans think that is okay. It's NOT.

Not watching the video yet. But I will when I have time for a 2 hour long vid.

I am not convinced by their ipse dixits or appeals to authority.

It being classified information doesnt change shit. In the scientific community, academics and experts actually go out of their way to prove their shit. Here we mostly have to deal with we have concluded X and such.

Prove this in the court of law and I will believe it. But until then, Russia is innocent.

Just keep your little red head buried in the sand...........

Oh, it's the same guy who asked Russian for a financial contribution during his election campaign in 2008? Source

Can we stop listening to the war criminal?

If keeping my head buried in the sand means holding Russia, Putin and Trump to the exact same standard I did with Hillary Clinton during the email scandal. Then so be it.

Edit: Is it possible they did, sure Russia has done this before, and so has the UK and the US, and most world powers really. But is it even remotedly to the same extent all this hyperbola would indicate? That is where it gets extremely suspect.

Would you like to be more specific or just leave it at that?

Actually, lets go ahead and quote your response to someone else and then maybe we can talk about the history of the Soviet Union/Russia in the 19th, 20th and 21st century if you'd like.

So this is one of the reasons i hate this topic. I have no doubts that they did "something" to attempt to control our election, the problem is because these claims are so vague and without any evidence any thinking individual should be at the point where you have to tell others to shut up about it. Give us something specific and valid that we can work with, or shut the **** up. People are tired of hearing this nonsense, this nonsense that is perfectly in line with how political parties manipulate these things, its right out of a goddamn "political manipulation for dummies" handbook. Again, its probably true, but i dont think anyone knows what it is, nor do they care. I have no problems suggesting they dont care, because the only time Russia manipulating anything has come up is when Hillary dropped the ball on the election. What, it was not a real issue before this? OR, is it the manipulations they were doing where also in favor of our two parties who loved taking full advantage of it?

I find it funny that your response to me was this statement on how little i know about Russia.

When at this point i feel the urge to ask you. Do you understand anything?

Do you know why we have counter intelligence agencies? Security agencies? What, you think this is a new thing?

Better yet, would you like to get into the conundrum of pay to play politics and this newly found stance im sure you never brought up before Hillary Clinton (who is more guilty than anyone on these subjects) couldnt handle that she lost because she was a shit candidate?

See heres the thing... as a contrarian i dont want to hear this nonsense from the people who refuse to offer any kind of actual information and specifics and find that acceptable, cant manage to see that it in itself is political manipulation, and who are only bringing it up because they have sand in their vagina over the election. Its this double standard bullshit we see with people who, for some reason, still cant see what has happened to our political parties. The same people who for some reason, still want to go with the mantra of "well.... theyre both corrupt but the republicans are a little better" or "well...... they are both corrupt but the democrats are a little better", and some how have not seen that they are running from the same exact playbook.

Because you don't know exactly what they did does not mean you bury your head in the sand and allow it to continue. Which it will if you don't take steps to stop it. Some people are tired of hearing this. Mostly Trump supporters because he's their vote and no one likes buyers remorse. The rest of that paragraph is just plain jibberish. You contradict yourself a few times as well and then veer into speculation.

I can assure you I know more about security than you do dude. And yes we have counter intelligence. They also are part of the intelligence community telling us Russia was involved. Again....you contradict yourself.

This has nothing to do with Hilary even with your lack of proof to your statements.

And your last paragraph clearly shows you lack any understanding of intelligence gathering. There will always be sensitive information that you cannot release to the world at large if you want to continue to be able to monitor threats. You also don't announce anything in any case until you have finished the intelligence gathering.

It should be enough to give you pause that it's known Russia WAS involved in getting Trump elected. And most of his advisors/campaign/administration is being pulled into the investigation. As an American and not a party fan boy that should disgust everyone.

Country over Party. PERIOD.

Common sense? Lol? How can you say this when the entire intelligence apparatus and Senate Intel are in complete unison saying you are dead wrong.

At least give some links and facts disproving testimony from the hearing if you are going to state something so absolutely absurd and bombastic. (You won't, as it would be breaking news everywhere if you found such data).

I'm starting to see how it's so easy for Breitbart/Fox to trick people into false information. Holy cow. Party over reality.

Some people can't handle the truth......so they align themselves with others doing the same and think they are correct. Sad really.

I dislike the republicans, actually.

The main reason I havent accepted their absurdly vague statements regarding the hacking is exactly because of that, they are vague. If the intelligence agency was acting like they do in any academic field, they would be laughed out of the academia. It is called having a criteria, a standard for evidence.

You are going to need something more than appeals to authority to provide a compelling case.

Did Russia come in and hack voting boxes or get millions of russians to pose as americans and vote for Trump?

Releasing documents is releasing documents and you can´t suddenly be against it because you do not like the source.

And again Perfect_Blue try with a lame attack because her arguments is failing.

Why are you responding to something in east when he commented on something in west?

Try reading the main point here, that the insane fear mongering over Russia is getting crazy, Sure Putin is a shit guy , but this is not back in the 50´s and the left may want to stop with their McCarthyism and red scare.

Russia hacked the emails, had 1000's of payed trolls spreading mis-information, and continue to hack politicians in the direct intention of interfering with our democracy. They do this to other nations as well.

Snowden and Manning did not do what I just listed above. There situation could not be more different. Not in a long shot. Btw, I do not support those two.....

On the flip side, you may want to stop down playing a foreign power interfering with our election process (among that of other democracies) simply because it helped your "team" win.

It's kind of cucky.

I agree some people are possibly going overboard, but lets not pretend it isn't a serious threat.

Do you even know what Snowden and Manning did?

What Snowden did was 1000 times worse than a few leaked emails and a some fake news stories. Not to mention Manning. They both brought american lives at risk, they brought the country in disrepute, all because they thought it was fun to act like god.

But you miss the core point here, Freedom and free information which is what both claimed to stand for, goes all ways no matter who leak the information. So you can´t complain over the russians for leaking emails that are true and just show the people the corrupt nature of the DNC and Hillary while at the same time celebrating Manning, Snowden and Wikileaks.

But good you are not a hypocrite like most leftist snowflakes when it comes to Snowden and Manning. It does not change the point

Hmm, i do not see a serious threat .

As long as the "interference" is fake news and leaked information , i honestly do not see a problem.

Particular not when you considering the state of the media in America, CNN , CBS, FOX, NBC, with less than 15-20% truthful stories and the very bias NY times, WaPO and the clearly fake Buzz and Huffington. Not forgetting the youtube generation and Instagram.

If it comes out tho that the Russians actively interfered in the election process by rigging machines or polls, then i will agree we have a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.

Absolutely irrelevant, as the CIA, FBI, and Homeland do. (on top of a good deal of level headed politicians on both sides of the aisle)

So I'm not really worried about what you think, as long as powerful agencies like those are in agreement with my worries and take precautions next election cycle.

Tell me, did you find the Benghazi bullshit acceptable? Did you find it okay that for years all we heard was "Benghazi Benghazi, Benghazi" with no one even telling us a specific claim about Benghazi? This is the same thing. The exact same thing, its simply coming from a different party. This blanket claim that is okay to make for a week or two, but then you want hear at the very least a specific charge. In neither of these instances, we are seeing specific charges. But but but... Benghazi! But but but.... Russia! Its the same idiocy.

Maybe you should go to any progressive channel or print, Sane Progressive, Jimmy dore, Secular talk, Humanist report, Tim Black, Goodman, etc. They are pretty sick of hearing about it too, again, because no actual claims are being made. All that is happening is a blanket claim is being made with zero specifics, and then its being used to manipulate politics. People are simply asking that you shit or get off the pot, issue a specific claim, a specific charge, or shut up about it until you can do this. Our media does not need spend 18 hours a day with "russia, russia, russia russia russia" without a single specific claim made. Now, im assuming you are old enough to have seen these tactics used over and over and be aware that when they take this route, its then proven 99 out of 100 times its bullshit. Even worse, these vague claims are coming from a person who's mentor was the man basically wrote the book on how to lie to the American people to do whatever they want militarily and what we see is this person practicing paragraph one of this book. Id also like to point out this is one of the reasons many of us dismiss te claims of republicanism or right wing ideas pushing the, what should be very obvious and expected, questioning of this situation. Because again, the person who originally made these claims and has been pushing them, is more right wing than most republican voters.

BTW, please highlight my contradictions.

Right, but you should probably pay attention to what they are saying when they issues these information releases. How often they say things without offering up any reasons or specifics as to why they would think that. They are all littered with the poor language of assumption and assertion and are being used in partisan politics as a claim made by someone who we can factually show has worked with Russia on a pay to play political basis more than anyone else.

Except that there is not a single point where we cant link this directly to her and the DNCs' claims.

This whole thing started because she made the claim that Russia was responsible for the Wikileaks emails. A claim that was disputed by the person who published them, from day one. And the one direct and single claim made in this whole mess, that we have seen challenged and it does not look good for the claim. Of course as we have seen a billion times over again, when this happens the first time after that we tend to see vague and generalized language so one cannot prove or disprove the claim.

Id like to point out that you dont get to have this both ways, either you wait for much of the intelligence to come in, make a claim, and then back that claim up OR you dont keep it in the media or as a political talking point and attempt to affect our laws and foreign policy. Id also like to point out that what you seem to be saying here is that it is acceptable to say these things, to affect the entire world, while not having evidence, while still collecting evidence that verifies or disproves these things. So are we talking about extreme ineptitude or blatant lying?

There is a massive difference between accepting that this is a possibility and understanding the potential consequences and situation. And saying that we understand these things, and have heard the generalized claims, but almost a year has gone by and there is this refusal to offer up anything to verify or demonstrate this. And not only do we see this lack of proof, but we then go on to see people bring up other situations and think that its proof of this. How this has been handled by our media, politicians and those who want to tout it is as irresponsible and void of any degree of critical thinking that one could do.

I also find it funny and very telling how people who understand the nature of proof, the scientific method and who apply these things to everything without bias. How we see people like yourself, having a very hard time addressing this as you seem to be far more inclined to address this as a partisan thing instead of as a series of claims with evidence and proof demonstrating these claims. Youd rather make ad hominem claims instead of addressing points made.... its a very creationist response in structure... avoiding points made and/or creating responses to something that was not said.

I dont care if you think i know anything about intelligence agencies, its not a point i made or a point to be mentioned, why are you ignoring responding to the claim of keeping this narrative up while offering nothing of substance? Again, i go back to Benghazi and im sure the double standard youve created. If im wrong on this please tell me, but i highly doubt you went around supporting the extremist right wing on this subject. While again, funny enough, its the exact same thing. The exact same reason you dismissed Benghazi is the same reason thinking progressives dismiss this claim and its not even a full dismissal, its saying put up or shut up. And the times we have seen them "put up" its typically with unrelated information or opinion pieces. Which again, any thinking individual could very easily come to the conclusion that this harms the claims more than helps them.

Yah, thats a good saying. Now maybe you should practice it. Maybe you should hold these people responsible for their claims instead of addressing people who take issue with them not doing so.

The problem with this is the person who published this information has always claimed that this was not the source. The company that tested the DNC servers, from what i remember, said on day one that there were proxies going through Russia but they could not tell if it was the starting origin of (and if you know anything about how the internet works, you know this is not unusual or uncommon) and it seems that the DNC ran with the idea that it was the starting point.

And of course if we are attempting to address a problem here, than maybe it should be the simple fact that this would not have happened had Hillary not broken federal laws. Its also widely ignored by people who want to promote this Russia propaganda, that had federal laws not been broken by Hillary, these emails would have fallen under the freedom of information act and been available to the public anyway.

Right. Even if we want to latch on to the seemingly false narrative that this was all Russia. World powers tend to do this including ourselves who are more guilty of it than anyone else. Its why we placed these laws and rules for politicians like Hillary to follow.... because of what was very easily expected.

I think the common flaw with what people have said is that they tend to try to suggest others do not understand the negatives and situations of countries interfering with other countries elections and politics. The reality here is most people understand this, the problem is no one is demonstrating this is what happened. Almost all evidence presented lies on the side that it didnt happen, and of course we end up seeing this situation where even if it did, we can definitely say who is at fault and why they are fault and demonstrate that if any other person did this, they would be in prison for 20 years... at least.

Please Provide citation of the bolded claims. They go against the findings of the CIA, FBI, and Homeland.

There is only cases for the opposite, so your words really made me laugh out loud.

Btw, the whole excuse "but we do it, so who cares if Russia does it." is really lame. They're doing it to our (me and McCain at least) country, do we really want our elections to be swayed by some 3rd world dump? The hell? Screw that.....I'm glad these big agencies are focused on this.

Hillarys non-criminal e-mail handling didn't make this "called for". Russia wanted Trump to win for their own gain. Not because they give a shit about messy handling e-mails.