Sen. John McCain, a lion of the Senate who spent three decades representing Arizona in the chamber died Saturday at age 81 after battling a brain cancer called glioblastoma since last summer.
As senators, presidents, journalists, political watchers and Americans across the country react to the news, CQ Roll Call delved into our archives for some photos that show McCain over the years, starting with the most recent:
October 2017: McCain and Midshipman Brigade Commander Austin Harmel are seen on stage after McCain and former Sen. John Warner, R-Va., left, a former secretary of the Navy, addressed the Brigade of Midshipmen at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. McCain’s address was almost 50 years to the day after his plane was shot down over Vietnam and he was captured as a prisoner of war. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
July 2017: McCain arrives in the Capitol to cast a vote to start debate on the Senate’s health care bill. About one week before, he underwent surgery for a blood clot, and doctors found a brain tumor known as glioblastoma. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
July 2016: McCain reads the headlines about Donald Trump’s nomination at the Republican National Convention as the party’s 2016 presidential candidate as he rides the train to the Grand Canyon out of Williams, Arizona. (Daniel A. Anderson for CQ Roll Call file photo)
May 2016: McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., joke as they arrive in the basement of the Capitol for a vote. Graham has been one of McCain’s closest confidants in the Senate and said McCain had called him three times that morning from the hospital to tell him to “buck up.” (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)
October 2015: McCain and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., listen during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. McCain, a decorated Navy veteran, chaired the panel. He has long been vocal about national security and foreign policy issues and most recently has often butted heads with Trump over those issues. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
December 2009: McCain attends a news conference as the Senate prepared to debate a bill overhauling health care, and as President Obama was expected to announce that he was sending some 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total to 100,000. (Scott J. Ferrell/CQ Roll Call file photo)
March 2009: McCain talks with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., then-chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The two were known to work across the aisle with each other, and the parallels to their lives are unavoidable. Kennedy, until his death in 2009, battled a similar brain tumor to McCain’s. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
Nov. 1, 2008: McCain, the Republican nominee for president in 2008, speaks during a rally in Springfield, Virginia, with his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan in his last appearance in Northern Virginia before the election, which he would lose to then-Sen. Barack Obama. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
October 2008: Supporters at a rally in Leesburg, Virginia, hold up cards spelling out McCain’s nickname during the 2008 campaign. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
Sept. 4, 2008: McCain greets the crowd with his running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, after he accepted the Republican nomination for president on the last night of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
2008: McCain and his Cindy McCain wave from the stage at the 2008 Republican National Convention. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
January 2001: As Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation chairman, McCain is seen here overseeing the confirmation hearing of the transportation secretary. (CScott J. Ferrell/CQ Roll Call file photo)
October 14, 1999: McCain applauds Granny D, a woman who walked across the U.S. to promote campaign finance reform, at a news conference. Lawmakers gave Granny D a pair of sneakers. McCain was a vocal proponent of changing election financing laws, so much so that his name is intertwined with the bill known as McCain-Feingold, which was signed into law in 2002. (Rebecca Roth/CQ Roll Call file photo)
May 1998: McCain talks to his scheduler on speakerphone in the late afternoon. (Scott J. Ferrell/CQ Roll Call file photo)
October 1997: McCain and Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., during a news conference on campaign finance reform. (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call file photo)
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Nov. 1, 2008: McCain, the Republican nominee for president in 2008, speaks during a rally in Springfield, Virginia, with his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan in his last appearance in Northern Virginia before the election, which he would lose to then-Sen. Barack Obama. (CQ Roll Call file photo)
