McCain: Joint Chiefs selection ‘outstanding’

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday endorsed President Obama’s pick for the nation’s top military officer but predicted the White House will ignore his advice.

Administration officials say the president plans to tap Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The announcement comes a few months after Ashton Carter was confirmed to lead the Defense Department.

While McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hailed Dunford’s selection, he said the shift to a new team doesn’t mean that Obama will change his national security strategy.

“He won’t take their advice and counsel. He won’t, he has taken any of it, so why should he start now?” McCain told reporters on Tuesday.

“I think they’ll do a good job, that doesn’t mean anyone’s disqualified. It just means the president listens to only two or three people, none of whom have any military experience whatsoever. That’s why the world is on fire,” he added.

McCain called Dunford an “outstanding selection,” noting the two have known each other “for many years, going back to the Iraq war and Afghanistan.”

“I think he’ll speak truth to power, that’s a habit Marines have,” he said.

McCain said Dunford’s confirmation hearing would like be held in July in September.

“I am confident that it will be done quickly, but thoroughly, okay?” he said. However, “there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered. It will not be rubber-stamped.”

McCain’s House counterpart also endorsed Dunford’s nomination, calling it a “good choice.”

“The range and severity of threats America faces today is unprecedented. I am encouraged that the President has chosen as his top military officer a General who has stared down many of those threats personally,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

Thornberry said the four-star general “has always been candid in giving his best military advice to this committee, if he is confirmed, I look forward to that relationship continuing.”

– This story was updated at 12:10 p.m.