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

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.

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