The McCain Institute, an establishment think tank, held its annual Sedona Forum May 1-2, and the list of featured speakers and “media partners” again revealed that the ongoing coziness of the Swamp hasn’t been the least affected by the growing polarization in America today.
It’s important to note off the bat that the McCain Institute is a partisan organization dedicated to a particular political viewpoint – that held by founder and namesake John McCain. “Every day, the Institute works to empower and develop character-driven leaders to uphold the same values of the Senator. Inspired by his convictions, we pursue action in the arena,” a paragraph on the McCain Institute website titled “Championing His Causes” reads.
As is widely known, the main cause that drove McCain, and which now fuels his Institute, is an aggressively interventionist US foreign policy. It’s spiked with the occasional progressive social and frequent globalist ideology that McCain also favored during his long career (the Institute lists “protecting against extremism” and “building enduring international connections” among its core “Impact” endeavors).
Because all this comes wrapped in the loaded establishment term “democracy,” the McCain Institute claims to be a nonpartisan organization with a “unique power to convene leaders across the global political spectrum.” Yet one never seems to find any pronounced America First Republicans or stridently anti-war Democrats inside this Big Tent.
‘Media Partners’ Reflecting McCain ‘Steadfast Belief’
The theme of the 2026 Sedona Forum is “Challenges to American Dominance.” What could possibly be more on-brand for John McCain? Given that, it’s quite startling to see big-name media outlets having no qualms whatsoever in openly identifying with this assertive sentiment.
The Institute announced its “Sedona Forum Media Partners” in a way that more than suggests political alignment:
“‘This year’s Sedona Forum reflects Senator John McCain’s steadfast belief that America is an indispensable power in the world, despite the dynamics reshaping its position in the world. We’re proud to partner with NOTUS, Punchbowl News, The Washington Post, and our official defense media partner, Defense News, to share takeaways from the important conversations focused on real-world solutions to address the challenges to American dominance,’ said McCain Institute Executive Director Dr. Evelyn Farkas.”
Agree or not, isn’t it at all concerning that ostensibly objective influential news sites are working to “amplify the reach and impact,” as the Institute says of their role as partners, of a forum explicitly dedicated to advancing John McCain’s muscular vision of America’s role on the world stage?
NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell was a scheduled speaker at the gathering. This means the major television network news reporter with the assigned beat of covering America First President Donald Trump, a man whose entire agenda John McCain fiercely opposed before his death in 2018, was participating in an event devoted to promulgating the global policy views of the pre-2016 establishment GOP warhorse.
Other media personages included CNN chief political analyst David Axelrod and PBS news correspondent Stephanie Sy.
Two of Six ‘Disobey’ Democrats and One Thom Tillis
The speakers’ list also highlights just what that “global political spectrum” the Institute claims to attract encompasses. Two of the six Democrats who took part in the infamous “Disobey” video of last November, in which blue members of Congress urged military servicemembers to refuse to obey “illegal” orders issued by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration, were slated to appear at Sedona. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) perhaps makes sense as a sitting senator from McCain’s home state, but inviting combative Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) seems like a deliberate anti-Trump statement – as does having “maverick” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) appear as he marks his last year in the upper chamber before retirement by opposing one Trump initiative after another.
In a nod to its progressive cultural inclinations, the Institute invited NBA Cares President of Social Responsibility & Player Programs Kathy Behrens to address the forum. NBA Cares lists a “Social Justice Coalition” on its web portal dedicated, among other things, to “policing reform” and criminal justice reform.
Michael Bidwill, owner of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, was also listed as a featured speaker.
And then there are those contributing sponsors whose “generous support” made the 2026 Sedona Forum possible. “Lead Sponsor” is the Carlyle Group, the multinational private equity goliath founded by David Rubenstein in large part with $100 million in seed investment money from notorious globalist philanthropist George Soros.
Soros is a major donor to the McCain Institute via his Open Society Foundations.
Other listed sponsors include corporate heavyweights Amazon, FedEx, and Verizon, and leftist powerhouse philanthropy the Knight Foundation.
We could go on, but do we really have to? It’s not as much about exposing the McCain Institute at this point as it is pointing out that the show goes on.
It is closing in on a full ten years since Donald Trump first won the White House with the explicit intention of serving as a wrecking ball to an ossified status quo in Washington, and the old Uniparty alignment personified by John McCain is still going strong in leading media, political, and cultural circles.
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