The former House speaker has not had a lot of good to say about McCain in recent years. He contended that on agenda items under the Republican-controlled Congress, “it just seems like everything we did, John was someplace else.”

“It was McCain-Kennedy, it was McCain-Lieberman, it was McCain-Feingold on campaign finance reform,” Hastert said, noting Democratic co-sponsors. “He was against us on tax cuts and his form of immigration reform was to open the gates and let everybody in.”

“He is a moderate,” the former speaker said. “In almost everything he’s done, he’s done (things) against what mainstream Republicans thought and he’s allied with Democrats. He was always the undependable vote in the Senate.”

McCain's campaign thinks they can smooth things over. "We look forward to the Speaker's support in the general election," said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to McCain.