--- title: John McCain Ad Pitches Him as Check on Hillary Clinton description: Sen. John McCain opened his general-election campaign with a frank suggestion: Hillary Clinton is likely to become the next President. canonical: https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/ author: Alex Altman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-02T14:53:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:42.140Z article:section: Politics og:title: McCain Pitches Himself as a Check on 'President Clinton' og:description: He's not the first Republican to suggest Trump may lose. og:url: https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2423976d72d6c3ae/6988a43a97cdff19666ada1f/mccain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Campaign 2016 Congress og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: McCain Pitches Himself as a Check on 'President Clinton' twitter:description: He's not the first Republican to suggest Trump may lose. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2423976d72d6c3ae/6988a43a97cdff19666ada1f/mccain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # John McCain Pitches Himself as a Check on 'President Clinton' > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Sep 2, 2016 2:53 PM UTC  John McCain, R-Ariz, speaks during a Phoenix Memorial Day Ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix, May 30, 2016. John McCain, R-Ariz, speaks during a Phoenix Memorial Day Ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix, May 30, 2016. Ralph Freso—AP  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Sep 2, 2016 2:53 PM UTC After fending off a primary challenge this week, Sen. John McCain opened his general-election campaign with a frank suggestion: Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump, is likely to become the next President. “If Hillary Clinton is elected president, Arizona will need a Senator who will act as a check, not a rubber stamp for the White House,” the Republican, who is bidding for his sixth term, says in a campaign video released Wednesday. The video doesn’t mention Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by name. But it makes an appeal to the many voters who are “dissatisfied with your choices for President,” casting McCain—and a Republican Senate majority—as a critical counterweight to Clinton’s policies. McCain has had a tricky relationship with Trump, who infamously declared that McCain was “not a war hero.” The Arizona Senator spent some five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison cell after his Navy plane was shot down in 1967\. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said in July 2015. Despite the tension between the two men, McCain endorsed Trump for President in May. McCain continued to support the controversial nominee throughout his own difficult primary, wary of alienating Trump voters. He’s not the first prominent Republican member of Congress to imply that Clinton will emerge victorious in November. In early August, House Speaker Paul Ryan dropped a similar hint. “If we fail to protect our majority in Congress, we could be handing President Hillary Clinton a blank check,” Ryan said in a fundraising message. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/"},"headline":"John McCain Pitches Himself as a Check on 'President Clinton'","datePublished":"2016-09-02T14:53:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:42.140Z","description":"He's not the first Republican to suggest Trump may lose","url":"https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Arizona","John McCain","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2423976d72d6c3ae/6988a43a97cdff19666ada1f/mccain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Altman","jobTitle":"Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/alex-altman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2423976d72d6c3ae/6988a43a97cdff19666ada1f/mccain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Campaign 2016 Congress","caption":"John McCain, R-Ariz, speaks during a Phoenix Memorial Day Ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix, May 30, 2016.","creditText":"Ralph Freso—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4477501/john-mccain-hillary-clinton-ad/","name":"John McCain Pitches Himself as a Check on 'President Clinton'"}}]}] ```