'They call him Songbird John': Military analyst on Fox advocates for torture by saying it worked on John McCain

Thomas McInerney, a military analyst appearing on Fox Business on Thursday, slammed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for opposing Gina Haspel's nomination as CIA director because she presided over so-called enhanced interrogation techniques that are considered to be torture.

After McCain urged fellow senators to oppose Gina Haspel's nomination, Fox Business host Charles Payne told McInerney that torture approved by President George W. Bush's administration "did work to the benefit of humankind."

"Should [senators] be evaluating this nominee on her feelings, or based strictly on the facts and her commitment not to use it anymore because it's no longer legal for us?" Payne wondered.

McInerney suggested that McCain had succumbed to torture when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam -- although that claim has been debunked.

"The fact is, is John McCain -- it worked on John," the Fox guest opined. "That's why they call him 'Songbird John.' The fact is those methods can work, and they are effective, as former Vice President Cheney said. And if we have to use them to save a million American lives, we will do whatever we have to."

Payne later tweeted that he did not hear McInerney's comments and apologized to the McCain family.

Watch the video below via Media Matters.

[Ed. note: This article has been updated to clarify that there is no evidence McCain succumbed to torture.]