Failed presidential candidate Senator John McCain spoke out sharply this weekend about Trump’s pro-torture political stance, saying that no matter what Trump wants, he will not allow waterboarding to take place.
More than once during the campaign, Trump spoke favorably of torture, including waterboarding. At one point, he asked his cheering rally audience what they thought of waterboarding before saying,
“I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough.”
Thankfully, Trump’s possible attempts to reinstate waterboarding as a torture technique will be met with quite a few roadblocks, most recent of which was a law signed by President Obama which restricted interrogation techniques to those outlined by the U.S. Army field manual.
Said McCain:
“I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not torture people … It doesn’t work.”
The Republican elected not to speak at length about this topic during the difficult election of 2016, taking away some of his credibility now.
Nevertheless, we respect the necessity of McCain’s contribution, having himself been a prisoner of war. (Notably, candidate Trump mocked McCain’s POW status months ago, saying that he wouldn’t consider him a hero since he was captured).
If Trump has his way, there will be absolutely no limits to his power – including torture – but on this issue, he can expect to find bipartisan resistance.
