After Supporting Hearings On The 14th Amendment, McCain Backtracks: ‘I Certainly Don’t’ Support Repeal

Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined the growing movement within the GOP to reassess the 14th Amendment and its mandate that anyone born in the U.S. automatically be granted citizenship. “I support the concept of holding hearings” on the issue, McCain told reporters last Wednesday.

But just over a week later, McCain changed his tune, telling the AP, “I’m not requesting hearings,” and that he “certainly” doesn’t support changing the 14th Amendment:

“When I was asked … I said ‘Look, if senators want to have hearings then senators have hearings, that’s how the Senate works, but I’m not requesting hearings,’” McCain said in an interview Thursday. “I’m devoting all my efforts to getting the borders secure, and if you get the border secure than the difficulties and challenges with this issue of people coming across our border illegally to have children is dramatically reduced.” [...]

When asked directly if would support such an amendment, McCain said: “No. I mean, first of all we’d have to have hearings, we’d have to find out what the argument would be, but I certainly don’t at this time.”

As his record would have predicted, McCain is flipping on his position from last week, but he is actually heading back towards the more reasonable stance he used to hold. McCain used to be a leading advocate of a path to citizenship and comprehensive immigration reform, and expressed serious reservations about mass deportations.

Meanwhile, California’s GOP nominees for governor and Senate, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, respectively, bucked the trend within their party and both came out against changing the 14th Amendment, Politico reported today. “I don’t support changing the 14th Amendment,” Fiorina said, explaining it’s just “an emotional distraction.”