Former New York Republican Gov. George Pataki says GOP Sen. John McCain's torture as a POW in Vietnam is "nothing comparable at all" to CIA interrogation methods used on al-Qaida detainees following the 9/11 attacks.
In an interview with Concord New Radio Thursday, Pataki took exception to McCain's denouncement of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" revealed in a Senate Intelligence Committee report Tuesday.
The interview was posted on the website
BuzzFeed.
"We don’t engage in torture," Pataki declared. "That’s a term that [California Democratic Sen. Dianne] Feinstein and [President Barack] Obama use but that others have rejected.
"Yes, it’s enhanced interrogation but it’s nothing comparable at all to what McCain underwent in Vietnam."
"I understand, he was a hero," Pataki said. "He behaved with incredible patriotism and personal bravery and we should give credit for that. But I think what Americans have done to try to get intelligence on those who’d attack us and kill innocent civilians and engage in brutal terrorist acts again remotely resembles that."
Pataki added McCain as a U.S. soldier was "subject when captured to the Geneva Convention," and that al-Qaida, the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Taliban were not subject to those same laws governing the treatment of prisoners.
McCain broke with most of his GOP colleagues Tuesday and praised the release of the Democratic-led committee's report, saying torture was a "stain on our national honor" and that "the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies."
McCain’s torture in Vietnam left him with limited mobility in his arms.
The Senate committee report details cases of detainees being waterboarded to near-death, days worth of sleep deprivation, a detainee chained to the ceiling while clothed in a diaper to go to the bathroom, rectal feeding and rectal rehydration, and a detainee spending more than 10 days in a coffin-shaped box, BuzzFeed notes.
Pataki also said in the interview he was considering a possible bid for his party’s presidential nomination in 2016, BuzzFeed reports, joining a crowded field of potential GOP candidates.
"Right now, [Pataki’s] been focused on what he sees going wrong on a national level," his spokesperson, David Catalfamo,
told the New York Observer.
"He believes the party needs to energize and focus on those core issues. Fundamental change in the ways that Washington has encroached into the lives of Americans … Point is that he would make is that he has a record of doing it. He has a record of reducing the size of government, reduced the size of the workforce, reduced taxes, reduced red tape."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.