As news of Sen. John McCain’s cancerous brain tumor spread on the evening of July 19, former Alaska governor and his 2008 vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, said she was sure “He'll face this diagnosis with courage and strength.”
“John McCain is one tough fighter,” she said in a Facebook post with a picture of them on the campaign trail. “We know he'll face this diagnosis with courage and strength.”
McCain was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, and after his plane was shot down over Hanoi, he became a prisoner of war for over five years.
Palin told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that she expects his attitude to be that this hardship is “fuel to endure.”
“I were going to war, I wouldn’t [ just] want McCain on my side, I'd want him leading the charge.”
Indeed, his daughter Meghan McCain said in a statement on Twitter that “it won’t surprise you to learn that in all this, the one who is most confident and calm is my father.”
The 80-year-old Republican from Arizona was diagnosed with primary glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, according to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona where he’s being treated.
McCain had been complaining of double vision and fatigue when he went in for a physical. Doctors ordered a CT scan and an MRI, and the results showed what they thought was a blood clot above his left eye.
When surgeons went to remove it last Friday, that is when they found the tumor.
The Mayo Clinic said in a statement that he was considering treatment options, which may include radiation and chemotherapy.
Currently he’s recovering at home, and said in a statement that he would return to work when he gets his doctors’ clearance.
His absence from the Senate floor pushed back a vote on the Better Care Act, the Republican senators’ alternative to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said a statement, “While John is recovering, the senator will continue our work on legislative items and nominations.”
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