Sen. John McCain, who is currently battling brain cancer, left Washington for Arizona ahead of what could be a very contentious vote on the tax reform bill.
President Donald Trump told reporters that the senator and his wife Cindy had headed back to Arizona on Sunday, adding:
“I understand he’ll come if we ever needed his help, which hopefully we won’t. But the word is John will come back if we need his vote. It’s too bad. He’s going through a very tough time, there’s no question about it. But he will come back if we need his vote.”
Earlier this week McCain was at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda and at the nearby National Institutes of Health getting chemotherapy treatment for glioblastoma, a malignant tumor in the brain that can cause serious symptoms like seizures and blurred vision.
According to an assessment by the neuro-oncology chief at the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute, Mark Gilbert, McCain is responding well to treatment.
Sans McCain, the GOP only has a sliver-thin margin to pass the final version of the tax reform bill. It initially cleared through Senate with 51 votes, but McCain’s early departure will leave them hanging if there is even one more defection.
So far, however, things are looking safe, as Senators Bob Corker and Marco Rubio both confirmed last week that they would vote for the bill.
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