John McCain says he won’t run for office again in upcoming book
Apr 30, 2018, 1:47 PM | Updated: 2:05 pm
PHOENIX – In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, ailing U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) acknowledged that this will be his final term in office.
“This is my last term,” wrote McCain, who was elected to the Senate for the sixth time in 2016. “If I hadn’t admitted that to myself before this summer, a stage 4 cancer diagnosis acts as ungentle persuasion.”
On Monday, Apple News published an exclusive excerpt of “The Restless Wave,” a memoir scheduled for release May 22.
In it, McCain wrote that he felt freer to express himself knowing that there were no more elections in his future.
“I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much,” he said. “And I can vote my conscience without worry. I don’t think I’m free to disregard my constituents’ wishes, far from it.
“I don’t feel excused from keeping pledges I made. Nor do I wish to harm my party’s prospects. But I do feel a pressing responsibility to give Americans my best judgment.”
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McCain, 81, also addressed the state of politics and polarization in the country in the excerpt.
“Before I leave I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations,” he wrote. “I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.”
In July, McCain was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. He underwent his first round of chemotherapy in August. Doctors found a second tumor in his brain in November.
He has not returned to work in Washington since December, and he underwent surgery to treat an intestinal infection related to diverticulitis on April 15.
In a tweet Saturday that has since been deleted, McCain’s son-in-law said the senator asked him to take care of his daughter, Meghan.
McCain has been staying at the family’s home outside of Sedona. His wife, Cindy, has been by his side, and Meghan has been flying in regularly from New York, where she works as a host on the TV morning talk show “The View.”
Shortly after the diagnosis, McCain agreed to the subject of an HBO documentary that is currently in production.
