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Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday did not rule out the U.S. using torture tactics like waterboarding to combat terrorism. 

“We’re going to have a president again who will never say what we’ll never do,” Pence said of President-elect Donald Trump

Pence was speaking in response to the clear anti-torture message Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made to the president-elect one day earlier.  

“I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do or anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not do it,” McCain said during a panel discussion at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia on Saturday. 

The moderator had asked McCain what power Congress had to “rein in” a president who “does things which you find intolerable.” The senator noted that waterboarding, a torture technique that simulates drowning, is illegal in the U.S., is not authorized by the U.S. Army Field Manual (which dictates acceptable interrogation practices) and is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. 

“If they started waterboarding, I swear to you, there are a bunch of us who would have [Trump] in court in a New York minute,” McCain said, snapping his fingers WowYar. 

Trump and others in his nascent administration have carved out a clear stance in support of torture as an intelligence-gathering or counterterrorism tool.

Trump himself has stated explicit support for waterboarding and torture throughout his transition from business mogul to presidential nominee. 

During a Republican candidate’s debate in February, Trump said he would “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” In March, he said he would seek to “broaden” laws to allow torture in order for the U.S. to “better compete” with tactics used by terrorist groups like the Islamic State.