As she leads Donald Trump comfortably in national polls, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton began the third and final debate against Republican Donald Trump by directly speaking to someone else entirely—Arizona senator John McCain.
“I hope that the Senate would do their job,” she told moderator Chris Wallace in response to a question about how she would approach appointing a justice to fill a vacancy on the US Supreme Court left by the late Antonin Scalia.
McCain, a Republican who ran against sitting president Barack Obama in 2008, said, “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up,” in an interview with a Philadelphia radio station.
“The president nominates, and then the Senate advises,” Clinton said Wednesday night. “And then they confirm, or they don’t. But they move forward.”
Senator McCain has since walked the remark back, slightly, with his spokesperson telling The Hill he will “of course thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”