Sen. John McCain used his signature snark on Thursday to warn colleagues that he will be returning soon to Washington — and chastised the Trump administration for ending assistance to moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad.

The twin statements served as reminders of the outsized role the 80-year old senator plays on Capitol Hill. Republicans badly need him to return as they try to shore up a weeks-long debate on a health-care overhaul. And he has been more willing than most Republicans to buck his party and the president to demand more decisive action to bolster the nation’s security, particularly in areas involving the country’s cyber defenses and posture against Russia.

McCain announced late Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with a tumor called a glioblastoma after surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye last week. The tumor is an aggressive type of brain cancer, and the prognosis is generally poor.

The news sparked bipartisan calls for his swift return and public statements of support from Trump and his predecessors. Former president George W. Bush said on Thursday that he phoned his 2000 GOP presidential campaign rival to “encourage him in his fight.” (Read more from “McCain Vows: ‘I’ll Be Back Soon'” HERE)

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Sen. John McCain’s absence from the Senate as he recovers from surgery for a blood clot has led the GOP leadership to postpone consideration of health care legislation already on the brink.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday night he was deferring action on the measure as McCain recovers at his home in Arizona. Surgeons in Phoenix removed a blood clot from above McCain’s left eye on Friday. The 80-year-old Senate veteran was advised by doctors to remain in Arizona next week, his office said.

“While John is recovering, the Senate will continue our work on legislative items and nominations, and will defer consideration of the Better Care Act,” McConnell said in a statement. (Read more from “Health Care Bill on Hold Because of McCain’s Health” HERE)

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John McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 34%) fended off a primary challenge from Kelli Ward in the Arizona Senate Republican primary Tuesday night, leaving Grand Canyon state conservatives with a lose-lose situation going into November.

Multiple outlets called the race just after 8:30 p.m. local time, with initial returns showing McCain at a 20-point margin over Ward with a final breakdown of 55-35 percent of the vote.

Ward, a 47-year-old osteopathic physician and former state legislator, ran a hardline, anti-establishment campaign that tried to tap into the populist wave precipitated by the rise of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. However, her fiery rhetoric and supposed Tea Party street creds failed to pass the muster necessary to obtain key endorsements from national conservative groups like Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Ward told Conservative Review in an interview earlier this year that she believed in many of the same “populist conservative values” as Donald Trump, hitting the incumbent senator on his record on the Armed Services Committee and his previous actions on immigration.

“[McCain] basically failed us [on immigration]. He lied; He said he wanted to build a [border] fence and then he ran right to the gang of eight amnesty bill, and the comprehensive immigration reform that we all know is code for amnesty,” she said in the interview. “So that on the ground here in Arizona is very, very important.”

“Stop holding hearings,” she added later, “Stop holding town halls, stop writing letters and actually do something for the veterans who served our country so honorably.”

In recent days, Ward even went after McCain’s age, saying that the 80-year-old establishment Republican could die on the job, if re-elected. “I’m a doctor. The life expectancy of the American male is not 86. It’s less,” she said in an interview with Politico.

According to a report at Politico Monday morning, McCain was already preparing for a narrow win, saying: “It’s not so much I think it’s close. I just don’t think you should heighten expectations … The one thing you never want to do in politics is heighten expectations. You always want to lowball it. That’s just the best way to handle it. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

Much like the case of Paul Nehlen’s failed campaign against Speaker Paul Ryan (F-53%) in Wisconsin, riding Donald Trump’s coattails did not translate into victory for a Republican primary challenger. Voters didn’t buy it and the establishment won.

Now, McCain is looking ahead to what is sure be the toughest general election fight of his political career against Arizona Rep. Anne Kirkpatrick, (F-13%) who is bringing the full force of the national Democratic Party, and will have to do so with almost no momentum from his own primary, in a state where he has a longstanding favorability problem, going back to a when he ranked as the least popular senator in the country in 2014, according to Public Policy Polling.

In November, Barry Goldwater’s senate seat will either go to an establishment Republican with an atrocious voting record across the board or an establishment Democrat who consistently votes along party lines.

For conservatives, Tuesday night’s results in Arizona present a no-win situation. (For more from the author of “After Double-Digit Win, Establishment McCain Will Face Establishment Democrat in November” please click HERE)

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