McCain calls on Obama to intensify airstrikes against ISIS

PHOENIX — Arizona Sen. John McCain is calling on President Barack Obama to do more to defeat ISIS.

After speaking to Arizona mayors at a luncheon in downtown Phoenix Thursday, McCain said more airstrikes are needed, and that the president needs to get tough with the terrorist group.

“We have to work to defeat them, not just stop them,” McCain said. “The president used the word ‘containment’ yesterday. This isn’t containment that’s needed. It’s defeat of this horrible organization that is a threat to U.S. national security.”

McCain pointed to the recent beheading of American journalist James Foley as an example of the militant group’s barbarism. Foley was killed after the U.S. refused to submit to the militant group’s $132 million ransom request, a decision McCain, a former prisoner of war, actually supported.

“You can’t do that, then it’s open season on American citizens everywhere in the world,” he explained to News/Talk 92.3 KTAR’s Mac & Gaydos Thursday. “It’s tragic that maybe we can’t ransom some of these people, but it’s just not something that is possible to do.”