Sen. John McCain says that while he agrees with Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, it’s hard to name an accomplishment of hers from her tenure as secretary of state.
“It’s well known that Hillary Clinton and I have a good relationship,” McCain told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in an interview set to air Wednesday evening. But “if you said, Secretary Clinton, tell me a concrete accomplishment during your tour as secretary of state? I think she may have trouble answering that.”
“She traveled to a lot of countries. She’s a great representative of America. Kind of a rock star status. Visited more countries than any other Secretary of state. But what concrete policies -- either a decision or whatever it is -- was she responsible for? And I think she’d have trouble answering that,” McCain continued.
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McCain, the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nominee, is one of the Senate’s leading foreign policy hawks. Clinton herself has been called a hawk, and has often come down on the same side as McCain in key foreign policy debates. “We do agree on a lot,” the senator told Matthews.
This summer, McCain invited Clinton to appear at a forum he hosts in Arizona. In previous interviews earlier this year, the senator was more positive about Clinton, saying he would be “proud” to work with her if she were to become president.
That relationship with Clinton makes his criticism of the likely Democratic presidential candidate especially notable, and serves as another indication that Republicans are already preparing for a general election campaign against Clinton.