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Video resurfaces of Sen. John McCain asking Fox News' Peter Doocy why he would ask a 'dumb question'

A clip has resurfaced of Arizona Sen. John McCain calling a question from Fox News' Peter Doocy "stupid" and "dumb."
Screengrab/Twitter Video
  • Video has resurfaced of Sen. John McCain calling Fox News' Peter Doocy's question "stupid." 
  • In the clip from 2017, McCain is heard asking Doocy: "Why would you ask something that dumb?"
  • It surfaced on Twitter after Biden called Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch" on a hot mic this week.

An video of Sen. John McCain having a heated exchange with the Fox News reporter Peter Doocy has resurfaced in which McCain appears to call a question from Doocy "dumb" and "stupid." 

The clip resurfaced on Twitter on Monday after President Joe Biden called Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch" on a hot mic. 

In the October 2017 video, Doocy approaches McCain, who died in 2018, to ask for the Arizona senator's comment on his relationship with then-President Donald Trump. McCain broke with the GOP ranks and voted against a repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the Senate in July 2017

"Has your relationship with the president frayed to the point that you are not going to support anything that he comes to you and asks for?" Doocy asks McCain in the clip. 

McCain, frowning, berates Doocy: "Why would you say something that stupid? Why would you ask something that dumb? Huh? My job as United States senator, as a senator from Arizona, which I was just re-elected to.

"You mean that I am somehow going to behave in a way that I'm going to block everything because of some personal disagreement? That's a dumb question," McCain said. 

Other clips have surfaced in the wake of Biden's remark, highlighting how the president's comment was not the only occasion that politicians have insulted journalists. 

A clip from a Trump rally resurfaced on Twitter in which then-President Donald Trump is heard calling NBC's Chuck Todd a "son of a bitch." 

Meanwhile, the CNN anchor Jim Acosta said on Monday that he and other journalists got called "a lot worse" when covering Trump but "never got an apology." 

"I don't remember that from the commander in chief. So maybe things are a little bit better to some extent," Acosta said.

For his part, Doocy laughed off Biden's comment in appearances on Fox News programs on Monday.

On Monday night, Doocy said that he might have no choice but to embrace the label of "stupid son of a bitch," telling the Fox News host Jesse Watters that "nobody has fact-checked" Biden on the statement. Doocy also told the Fox News host Sean Hannity that Biden later apologized and they "cleared the air."