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John McCain took the Senate floor this afternoon to a standing ovation from senators from both parties, and whoops from Republicans. The applause from the Democratic side of the chamber didnt last longthe Republican senator quickly voted yes to a motion that is the first step towards repealing Obamacare, the health care law McCains party has been trying to destroy for years.

In the midst of being treated for a form of brain cancer that is nearly always fatal, McCain flew from his home state of Arizona to cast his vote, and in doing so helped set in motion a series of events that experts warn could bring the US healthcare system to a complete collapse. McCains vote split the Senate 50-50, which allowed vice president Mike Pence to come in with a tie-breaker in favor of proceeding.

McCain also handed a much-needed victory to president Donald Trump, a man who once mocked McCains years as a prisoner of war. Beleaguered by a steady drip of information from ongoing investigations into the Russian governments meddling in the 2016 election, under fire for a wildly inappropriate speech to the Boy Scouts of America, and facing criticism for his outlandish threats towards his own attorney general, Trump desperately needs to prove to voters and donors that hes an effective leader.

Trumps efforts lobbying Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare have been sporadic, but he was quick to claim a win after the Senate vote.

Minutes after the tally was in, the obviously delighted president held a press conference at the White House, where he declared the vote a big step, and personally thanked McCain.

Because of his personal service to the nation and his calls for decency in politics, McCain has enjoyed a reputation as the anti-Trump Republican. After Tuesdays Senate vote, he delivered a characteristic red-meat speech exhorting senators to stand up to the president, and decrying the unorthodox, bitterly bipartisan process that created the shell of a bill that he just voted to bring to the Senate floor.

Tuesdays vote was just the latest proof that McCains fiery words are just that. McCain has voted in line with the Trump administrations position 90.7% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. Thats one of the lowest scores of all Senate Republicans, but still pretty rock-solid support for a president who has picked an inexperienced, unorthodox cabinet determined to destroy the agencies they run, and who continues to push the boundaries of ethical and behavioral norms.

The Republican-led Congress is now expected to maneuver through a series of votes that would eventually lead to a skinny repeal of Obamacare, which rolls back specific requirements (like the one that forces employers to offer health insurance to employees), and could snatch health insurance from 15 million Americans.

After the vote, a crowd of families with severely disabled children who had been protesting the bill gathered outside the Capitol building, where they spoke to Democratic senators who were exhorting them not to give up the fight. Today was a gut punch, Brian Schatz, the senior senator from Hawaii, told the crowd. Still, he said, we are going to win the argument. The American people are on our side.

McCain, however, is not.

Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.

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John McCain just made Donald Trump great again - Quartz

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio President Donald Trump returned to this longtime Democratic stronghold on Tuesday night, sounding almost unchanged from the candidate who campaigned here last year, as he confidently doubled down on promises he has yet to keep.

In a Covelli Centre filled with still-believing fans, Trump promised a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, which so far is stalled in a long pipeline of legislation that must come before it. He vowed he was still going to build that wall, which currently has no source of funding. He said manufacturing jobs would come roaring back to Mahoning County, advising the Ohio crowd, Dont sell your house. Were going to get those values up. Ohios unemployment rate increased to 5 percent in June, from 4.9 percent the previous month.

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And even as he is actively splitting his own party and his own movement by publicly denigrating his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, Trump made a rousing call that America must be united.

But what was ostensibly the biggest good news of Trumps day the Senate vote to move ahead with the debate on repealing Obamacare appeared in his speech only as an afterthought. It didnt get more than a passing mention until the very end of Trumps hourlong laundry list of a speech, during which he appeared more animated when he spoke about cracking down on undocumented immigration, sanctuary cities and radical Islamic terrorism than when he touched on the legislative victory that puts him one step closer to fulfilling a campaign promise.

Any senator who votes against repeal and replace [is] telling America they are OK with the Obamacare nightmare, and I predict theyll have a lot of problems, warned the president, who through the process, senators said, has not immersed himself in the complicated details of the House or Senate bills.

Later in the evening, the Senate decisively rejected the existing GOP proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare, opening what promises to be a fractious debate over a final bill.

Trump arrived in this struggling, blue-collar city accompanied by a large entourage of family members, Cabinet secretaries and staff. Counselor Kellyanne Conway and the new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, were spotted in the crowd posing for selfies with fans.

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Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin watched the rally at the arena from the sidelines. Trump traveled on Air Force One with his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; Ohio native and White House staffer Omarosa Manigault; and adviser Sebastian Gorka. Also traveling were two former campaign operatives, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, Trump loyalists who have been spending more time in the White House in recent weeks.

In Mahoning County, where the only local elected Republican official is the county auditor, Ralph Meacham, and where Republican Gov. John Kasich has publicly feuded with the president over health care, Trump was introduced at the rally by his son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Lara Trump.

When you hear the word Russia, keep something in mind, Lara Trump told the crowd. The same people touting the crazy Russia story are the ones who gave us the fake polls ... who said there was no path to victory for Donald Trump.

Trumps speech a retread of a campaign rally minus the mentions of Hillary Clinton was punctuated with the regular Trump rally cheers of CNN sucks! and Build that wall! from the hyped-up crowd, returning Trump to the good old days of the 2016 campaign trail, almost a year to the day after he clinched his partys nomination.

Im here this evening to cut through the fake news filter and to speak straight to the American people, he said, relishing the show of insulting protesters.

Hes a young one, hes going back home to mommy, Trump said at one point as a young man was escorted out of the arena by security. Hes in trouble. I bet his mommy voted for us, right?

At one point, Trump, who recently tweeted that he has very little time for watching TV, admitted that was how he started his Tuesday. So this morning, Im watching Fox News, he said, noting he was interested in an interview with a Democrat who voted for Trump. He apparently had his staff track the man down, and Trump pulled him up onstage to celebrate him at the rally.

So far in his presidential rally schedule, Trump typically visits states that he won. But his visit Tuesday night to the red state of Ohio was slightly different. Trump lost Mahoning County, but only by 3 points 50 percent to 47 percent an incredible swing for a county that President Barack Obama carried by 27 points just four years earlier. His strong performance in a Democratic county of the state was due to his economic message from a businessman that resonated with white, working-class voters fed up with their party and the status quo.

Many people in the crowd said they were lifelong Democrats who deserted their party for Trump and they said they were willing to give him more time to fulfill the promises that attracted them to the president, like protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Its only been six months, said Camille Hancharenko, a retired General Motors employee who said she was a Democrat for 60 years before getting onboard with Trump. Ill give him four years; well, I want him in there eight years. As long as it takes.

But a recent Gallup Poll of Ohio voters overall showed more disapprove of his performance than approve, 48 percent to 47 percent.

If anyone who came out to show their support had concerns about their president six months in, the concerns were only stylistic.

His methods may be maddening, but I think hes the right guy, said Dan Goffos, a native of Warren, Ohio. He surprises me every time he opens his mouth or touches a keypad. But he somehow seems to come out smelling like roses.

Trump, who didnt bring up his frustrations with Sessions in his remarks, defended his style overall as part of his process.

With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president thats ever held this office, he said. Its much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what were doing here tonight, believe me.

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At Ohio rally, Trump keeps making campaign promises - Politico

Trump ranged from the current health care bill to stories of a bygone time in New York history to his Electoral College victory in 2016. It was a Trumpian tour de force -- one sure to cheer his supporters but leave the rest of the country wondering what, exactly, he is doing and thinking.

I went through the speech and picked out the 29 oddest, cringiest lines -- no easy task given the sheer strangeness of Trump's speech.

Here they are -- in the rough order Trump said them.

1. "Boy, you have a lot of people here. The press will say it's about 200 people. It looks like about 45,000 people. You set a record today. You set a record."

2. "I said, 'Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?' Right?"

Trump, apparently. He spent the VAST majority of this speech jabbing at his political foes and recounting his 2016 successes.

3. "Today, I said we ought to change it from the word 'swamp' to the word 'cesspool' or, perhaps, to the word 'sewer.'"

Remember: "Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?"

4. "Many of my top advisers in the White House were Scouts. Ten members of my Cabinet were Scouts. Can you believe that? Ten."

5. "Some of you here tonight might even have camped out in this yard when Mike was the governor of Indiana, but the scouting was very, very important."

Your guess is as good as mine.

6. "We're doing a lot with energy."

This was part of Trump's introduction of Boy Scout and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who was in attendance. Apparently, we are "doing a lot" with energy.

7. "He better get them. Oh, he better -- otherwise, I'll say, 'Tom, you're fired.' I'll get somebody."

8. "As the Scout Law says: 'A Scout is trustworthy, loyal' -- we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that."

Is this about Sessions? Republicans in the Senate on health care? Staffers leaking to reporters? All of the above?

9. "I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people."

This has to be a record, right?

10. "By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?"

As Trump was saying this, CNN was showing shots of the crowd. Also, that crowd was "massive" and "record setting."

11. "By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?"

"Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?"

12. "I'll tell you a story that's very interesting for me when I was young. There was a man named William Levitt -- Levittowns, you have some here, you have some in different states."

This is my favorite part of the entire Trump speech. He regales a crowd of kids -- most of whom are teenagers -- about life in New York in the post-World War II age. Nothing like knowing your audience!

13. "Oh, you're Boy Scouts, but you know life. You know life. So -- look at you."

???????

14. "He so badly wanted it, he got bored with this life of yachts and sailing and all of the things he did in the south of France and other places."

Same.

15. "And in the end he failed, and he failed badly. Lost all of his money."

Aim for the stars, kids!

16. "I saw him at a cocktail party, and it was very sad because the hottest people in New York were at this party."

Again, Trump is speaking to a crowd of teenagers. And recounting his glory days in New York City high society -- decades before they were even born.

17. "You have to know whether or not you continue to have the momentum, and if you don't have it, that's OK. Because you're going to go on and you're going to learn and you're going to do things that are great."

Momentum is the key. Having it is everything. If you don't have it, though, everything is still going to be great.

18. "I have to tell you our economy is doing great."

For the 80th time: Trump is speaking to tens of thousands of teenagers.

19. "Do we remember that date? Was that a beautiful date? What a date."

He's talking about Election Day 2016. Because of course he is.

20. "But do you remember that incredible night with the maps and the Republicans are red and the Democrats are blue, and that map was so red, it was unbelievable, and they didn't know what to say?"

21. "And you know we have a tremendous disadvantage in the Electoral College -- popular vote is much easier."

"Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?"

22. "I went to Maine four times because it's one vote, and we won. But we won -- one vote. I went there because I kept hearing we're at 269."

He's speaking to teenagers gathered for their annual Jamboree in West Virginia. And he's talking about how Maine splits its two electoral votes by congressional district.

23. "But then Wisconsin came in. Many, many years -- Michigan came in."

"Many, many years."

24. "Wisconsin hadn't been won in many, many years by a Republican. But we go to Wisconsin, and we had tremendous crowds. And I'd leave these massive crowds. I'd say, 'Why are we going to lose this state?'"

Not sure if you've heard but Trump won Wisconsin. He was the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

25. "So I have to tell you what we did, in all fairness, is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other millions and millions of people that came out and voted for Make America Great Again."

Most of the people who were in the audience weren't 18 in 2016 and, therefore, did not vote to Make America Great Again.

26. "And by the way, under the Trump administration, you'll be saying 'Merry Christmas' again when you go shopping. Believe me. 'Merry Christmas.'"

Trump gave this speech on July 24.

27. "They've been downplaying that little, beautiful phrase. You're going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' again, folks."

First of all, "they." Second of all, Merry damn Christmas.

28. "I promise you that you will live scouting's adventure every single day of your life, and you will win, win, win and help people in doing so."

So much winning. You will be bored by all of the winning.

29. "I've known so many great people."

The best people. Believe me.

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The 29 most cringe-worthy lines from Donald Trump's hyper-political speech to the Boy Scouts - CNN

Jeffrey Kluger is Editor at Large for TIME magazine and the author of Apollo 8.

Barry Goldwater wasn't crazy. He was exceedingly conservative by the standards of his timeand that sometimes got him into trouble. In 1964, when he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, he suggested that maybe it wouldn't be a terrible strategy to use just a few of the atomic bombs in the U.S. arsenal to defoliate forests in North Vietnam and give Americans a fighting edge. Was that extreme? Sure. Crazy? No. And, in the face of furious blowback, Goldwater was smart and sane enough to walk back his very bad idea.

That, however, didn't stop the ironically named Fact magazine from running a sensational story with the provocative headline, "1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to Be President!" The story was junk: A questionnaire had been sent to 12,356 psychiatrists, nearly 10,000 of whom had simply ignored it. Of the 2,417 who did respond, a majority of 1,228 pronounced then-Senator Goldwater perfectly sane. The minority said he wasn't and the minority got the headline. Goldwater, who went on to win the GOP nomination only to get trounced by Lyndon Johnson, later sued the editor of Fact for libel, and he won. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association responded by adopting what it straightforwardly called the Goldwater Rule, forbidding members from offering a diagnosis of a public figure they have not themselves examined and even then, not without that person's consent.

But that was then. And then was before the age of Donald Trump . It was before the early-morning tweetstorms , before the febrile conspiracy theories, before the grandiosity and impulsiveness and the serial counter-factualism. It was before, in short, Americans made a man who at least appears unstable to a great many observers the most powerful person in the world. That has led a lot of people to argue that we may have over-learned the lesson of the Goldwater Rule and that it's time to scrap or at least suspend it.

That is precisely the position another professional group, the American Psychoanalytic Association, has now taken. In an internal email, the association urged its 3,500 members to speak their minds on the matter of presidential mental health, and if they consider Trump unwell, to say so. According to the health and medicine website STAT , some members of the group have gone so far as to conclude that not only is it alright to weigh in on the matter of Presidential sanity, but that doctors have an affirmative "duty to warn." The American Psychiatric Association quickly made clear it stands by the Goldwater Rule.

By way of disclosure, more than three years ago, I opened my book, The Narcissist Next Door , with five pages devoted to Trump. It was not a diagnosis I'm not a clinician but it was a description, and I continue to believe it's a good one. I also believe the psychoanalytic group is right to take the muzzle off its members.

Consider first that we live in a far more psychologically savvy era than we did even 30 years ago, to say nothing of half-a-century back in the Goldwater years. During the 1988 Presidential campaign, Michael Dukakis took a lot of heat from the GOP over the fact that he had sought psychological counseling after the 1973 death of his brother. Would voters care if a grieving sibling presidential nominee or not sought such help today? Not likely. America hasn't necessarily gotten more compassionate, but we have gotten smarter, and we have a better understanding of the difference between routine mental health problems and a truly debilitating psychopathy. If the President any President exhibits signs of clinical illness, we're better able to weigh the evidence and understand the implications.

What's more, it doesn't take professional training or particular insight to recognize that certain human behaviors are psychic red flags. If you can't eat a meal without first washing your hands until they bleed, it would be fair for your family to suspect that you just might have OCD. If you can't have a single drink without then having 15 more, it doesn't take a clinician to suggest that you may may be an alcoholic. Presidents have exhibited worrisome behavior before: Johnson's exhibitionism, Richard Nixon's seeming paranoia. But they projected a fundamental groundedness too, a basic understanding that certain actions would lead to certain results, and an ability to pursue desired ends in a linear and disciplined way.

Finally, the Goldwater Rule, while masquerading as enlightened, actually betrays an outdated divide between physical and mental health. If President Dwight Eisenhower, who at one time had been a four-pack-a-day smoker , had shown any outward symptoms of cardiovascular disease before his 1955 heart attack, it's unlikely anyone would have been reluctant to ask whether the 60-year-old veteran of a World War was up to campaigning for reelection. Certainly no one was reluctant after he did get sick. So why stay decorously silent when behavioral symptoms are just as obvious?

It's indeed impossible for anyone but a professional who is treating Trump to say with certainty what his clinical diagnosis is if any. But when the mental health of one man can have such a profound impact on the lives of 323 million Americans to say nothing of the 7.5 billion people living on the planet as a whole it's irresponsible to not at least have the conversation. And it's a dereliction for the people who know the most the doctors not to lead it.

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Go Ahead, Psychiatrists: Diagnose Donald Trump - TIME

Chrissy Teigen has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, but now he won't see her messages.

On Tuesday, the model said that the president blocked her on Twitter after she mocked one of his tweets about the Senate health care bill vote.

As a result, she will no longer be able to view his profile, nor will she be able to direct messages at him.

"After 9 years of hating Donald J Trump, telling him 'lol no one likes you' was the straw," she tweeted today, together with a screenshot showing the president had blocked her from his personal account.

According to The Associated Press, earlier this month the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against Trump in New York City for blocking his detractors on Twitter, claiming it was an opinion-based restriction that violated the Constitution. The AP reported that former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and White House director of social media Dan Scavino were also named in the suit.

A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

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Chrissy Teigen: Donald Trump blocked me on Twitter - ABC News