McCain to protesters: ‘Get out of here, you low-life scum’

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, talks to the committee’s ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, prior to the start of the committee’s hearing to examine global challenges and US national security strategy. AP

WASHINGTON — US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has kicked protesters out of a budget hearing, calling them “low-life scum.”

The upheaval came Thursday on Capitol Hill after members of an anti-war group calling itself Code Pink approached a witness table where former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and George P. Shultz were testifying. The protesters carried signs calling the 91-year-old Kissinger a war criminal.

McCain blurted out, “Get out of here, you low-life scum.”

Capitol Police removed the protesters from the room.

The hearing was the third in a series in which McCain, the unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential candidate, has called luminaries from the foreign policy world to share their experiences with lawmakers on the panel.