"Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully, and a murderer and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying."

Yet, Putin is something else, the leader of the largest nation on earth, a great power with enough nuclear weapons to wipe the United States off the face of the earth. And we have to deal with him.

McCain was echoed by the senior Democrat on foreign relations, Bob Menendez, who said naming Tillerson secretary of state would be "alarming and absurd … guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice in the (Trump) Cabinet guiding our nation's foreign policy."

Sen Marco Rubio chimed in: "Being a 'friend of Vladimir' is not an attribute I am hoping for from a Secretary of State."

If just three GOP senators vote no on Tillerson, and Democrats vote as a bloc against him, his nomination would go down. President Trump would sustain a major and humiliating defeat.