McCain Denies Reports of Snubbing Bush in 2000
Reports keep surfacing that John McCain admitted shortly after the 2000 election that he did not vote for President Bush, even as the Arizona senator and his campaign reject the claims outright.
“It’s nonsense,” McCain told reporters Friday in Jersey City, N.J.
“Of course (I voted for him),” he told FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly Thursday. “And I voted … for Bush in 2000 and 2004.
“And not only that, far more important than a vote — I campaigned everywhere in America for him,” he said. “And I enjoyed it. I campaigned with him. I did everything I could to get him elected and re elected president.”
The presumptive GOP nominee defended himself after Arianna Huffington wrote in The Huffington Post Monday that McCain and his wife Cindy told her at a Los Angeles dinner party shortly after the 2000 election that neither of them voted for Bush. She wrote that Cindy McCain even said she voted for her husband as a write-in candidate.
The Los Angeles Times then claimed Wednesday that an anonymous source who attended the dinner confirmed the Cindy McCain account.
And Friday, The Washington Post and The New York Times reported two “West Wing” actors heard the same thing from the Arizona senator — only their version of the story was a little different.
According to the Post, actor Bradley Whitford said McCain told a group of people at the Hollywood dinner that Bush was “horribly unqualified and untested.”
Asked if he supported Bush, McCain then “put his finger up to his lips, shook his head and mouthed, ‘No way,’ ” according to Whitford.
Actor Richard Schiff gave a similar account. Neither remembered Cindy McCain describing how she voted.
Click here to read the latest account of the Hollywood dinner with McCain in The Washington Post.
FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.
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