Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, John McCain, and Bill Cassidy held a press conference Thursday night in the Capitol demanding full assurance from the House that the lower chamber would not, under any circumstances, take up the bill they planned to pass and send it to the White House. If the Senate could be assured it would go to conference committee instead, they promised, then they would support it.
To be clear: They demanded a public promise that the bill they were voting for would never become law in order to agree to vote for it.
McCain, who returned to the Senate after a brain cancer diagnosis to cast the dramatic vote McConnell needed to get the bill on the floor, put it as well as anybody could.
Just before the Senate took up the critical vote, he told reporters, “Wait for the show.”
McCain joined with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to give the chamber just enough votes to kill it, 51-49.
It was all a show.