“Make no mistake,” Mr. McCain said, “my service here is the most important job I’ve had in my life.”

Mr. McCain quickly moved on to critique the current state of the Senate and his own role in a partisan, quarrelsome era of American governing. The Senate, Mr. McCain said, has not “been overburdened by greatness lately; they aren’t producing much for the American people. Both sides have let this happen.”

In self-reproach, he added: “Sometimes I’ve let my passion rule my reason. Sometimes I made it harder to find common ground because of something harsh I said to a colleague.”

Mr. McCain cautioned his colleagues to ignore “bombastic” pundits. “To hell with them,” he said to applause as he implored his colleagues to work in a bipartisan manner — a provocative message after the hyperpartisan vote. (In all, 50 Republicans voted to take up the health care debate and two voted no. On the other side, 46 Democrats and two independents voted no.)

On social media, Mr. McCain took a beating in the 24 hours after he revealed that he would make the five-hour flight to Washington to vote for what many viewed as a bill to take away health care from poor people when Mr. McCain was receiving the best treatment available. In 2008, Senator Edward M. Kennedy had the same tumor that has sickened Mr. McCain, and the Massachusetts Democrat made a surprise appearance to help Democrats break a filibuster they said would protect access to doctors by older Americans.

Over the last year, Mr. McCain, 80, has displayed every element of his disputatious, droll, scolding, informed, press-loving, press-hating, senatorial self. He has zipped around the world at a pace that has exhausted colleagues decades younger, trying to assure allies rattled by Mr. Trump’s tweets and remarks.

He has remained watchful and characteristically hawkish on all things Russia-related, even as his fellow Republicans have largely shied from the issue since Mr. Trump entered the White House. He has remained bizarrely captivated by the vexing problem of catfish inspection processes. He has cooperated loyally with the party, except when he hasn’t. He brought down a Republican measure to end emissions curbs on methane because he was mad about the Trump administration’s choice for United States trade representative.

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But his Teflon veneer showed cracks this spring when he seemed to be occasionally confused and at times more testy than usual. Last month, Mr. McCain seemed muddled while questioning James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, during a Senate hearing. Mr. McCain later said his befuddlement was because of a late night watching an Arizona Diamondbacks game. This month, Mr. McCain learned he had brain cancer.

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It was striking enough that Mr. McCain, held and tortured for five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, returned dangerously sick to the Capitol to help put a health care bill over the line. It was stunning that he did it for Mr. Trump, who as a candidate derided Mr. McCain’s military service — “I like people who weren’t captured,” Mr. Trump said in July 2015 — and who ridiculed scores of policy and political conventions that Mr. McCain has embodied over a generation.

This was the John McCain who, rather than attend the 2016 Republican National Convention, chose instead to stomp around his home state and to take a train to his beloved Grand Canyon.

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On Tuesday morning, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, expressed his thanks on the Senate floor. “Senator McCain is a fighter,” he said. “That’s evidenced by his remarkable life of public service, just as it’s again evidenced by his quick return to the Senate this afternoon. I know he’s eager to get back to work, and we’ll all be very pleased to have him back with us.”

Mr. McCain does not expect the health care vote to be the culmination of his congressional career, which began when he won a House seat in 1982. It is Mr. McCain’s intense wish to oversee the annual Pentagon policy bill, and he has repeatedly told Republican leaders he will manage the passage of the legislation.

“I’ve had so many people say such nice things about me recently that I think some of you must have me confused with someone else,” Mr. McCain said, suggesting that he would get the Pentagon bill moving in the next few days before going home for treatment. His colleagues rose to applaud him.

Mr. McCain, who will soon undergo treatment for his cancer, said he would be back. “I have every intention of returning here,” he said, “and giving all of you cause to regret all of the nice things you said about me.”

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Ahead of President Trump’s appearance Monday at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, the troops were offered some advice on the gathering’s official blog: Fully hydrate. Be “courteous” and “kind.” And avoid the kind of divisive chants heard during the 2016 campaign such as “build the wall” and “lock her up.”

But from the moment he took the stage, Trump — who was never a Scout himself but touted his role as the “honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America” — started leading them down a very different path.

Over the next 35 minutes, the president threatened to fire one of his Cabinet members, attacked former president Barack Obama, dissed his former rival Hillary Clinton, marveled at the size of the crowd, warned the boys about the “fake media,” mocked pollsters and pundits, and said more people would say “Merry Christmas” under his presidency. He also told a rambling tale about a famous, now-deceased home builder that meandered from a Manhattan cocktail party to a yacht and then to places that the president would only allow the boys’ imaginations to go.

The speech was, in fact, very much like the rally speeches that Trump gave across the country last year, although he sprinkled in some pieces of inspirational advice (“Do something you love”) and reflections on Boy Scout values (“We could really use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”).

Trump was joined by former Scouts who serve in his Cabinet, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The latter wore a Scouting outfit for the occasion. “Ryan is an Eagle Scout from Big Sky country in Montana,” Trump relayed.

As the president’s speech continued, Perry appeared to grow bored as he stood behind Trump, chatting with others, flipping through a book and then filming a video of the crowd. Not invited on the adventure: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an Eagle Scout whose day job appears in jeopardy in Washington.

Trump began the official address, delivered from a lectern with the presidential seal, by pledging to talk about things loftier than politics.

“Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C., you’ve been hearing about with the fake news,” the president told the crowd of Scouts and volunteers gathered in Glen Jean, W.Va. “Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?”

But before long, Trump dived into the politics of the Republican health-care bill, which could die if it doesn’t clear a key procedural vote on Tuesday. Trump pointed to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who has been tasked with selling the legislation.

“Hopefully he’s going to get the votes tomorrow,” Trump said, emphasizing the importance of overhauling the Affordable Care Act, which he called “this horrible thing that’s really hurting us.”

As chants of “USA! USA!” broke out, Trump asked Price: “By the way, are you going to get the votes? You better get the votes. Otherwise, I’ll say, ‘Tom, you’re fired.’ ”

Trump also slipped in a reference to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, one of the Republican holdouts on moving forward with the bill, which would leave up to 22 million fewer Americans with health insurance by 2026, according to estimates.

President Trump was joined by, from left, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as he spoke at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, W.Va., Monday. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

“You better get Senator Capito to vote for it,” the president told Price.

Seemingly returning to the teleprompters, Trump pivoted to another subject.

“Boy Scout values are American values,” the president said. “And great Boy Scouts become great, great Americans. As the Scout law says, a Scout is trustworthy, loyal – we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”

It wasn’t clear what Trump was referencing. Perhaps it was fellow members of his party refusing to vote for health-care legislation. Perhaps it was Sessions, whom earlier in the day Trump had called “beleaguered” in a tweet. Trump harshly criticized Sessions last week for recusing himself from investigations involving Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Boy Scouts then chanted the 10 other words that make up the Boy Scout Law: “Helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” On the stage behind Trump, Zinke and Perry stood at attention and held their right hands up in the Boy Scout salute. Trump smiled.

“Very good,” he told the boys. “Very good.”

At another point, Trump marveled at the more than 30,000 Scouts who had gathered for the Jamboree, although he acted as if they were there just for him and not for a regular event attended by seven other presidents.

“What do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero,” Trump said as the Scouts yelled out answers and “CNN!” “The fake media will say . . . ‘President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today.’ That is some crowd. Fake media! Fake news!”

As Trump told the Scouts that they should spend their adult years doing something that they love to do, someone in the crowd shouted that he loved the president.

“I love you, too,” Trump said, before jumping into a monologue on love between males. “I don’t know, it’s a nice guy. Hey, what am I going to do, he sounds like a nice person. He. He, he, he. Thank you. I do, I do love you.”

The boys laughed and then seemed to chant something that sounded like: “We love Trump! We love Trump!” Trump smiled and applauded them, then said: “By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a Jamboree?”

“Nooooo!” the boys roared back in a sound that seemed to turn into booing, apparently not giving Obama credit for sending a video message to the 2010 Jamboree.

Before the gathering, the Scouts were told on the Jamboree’s blog that it would be inappropriate to behave as though they were at a campaign rally.

Such behavior, the blog said, “is considered divisive by many members of our audience and may cause unnecessary friction between individuals and units. . . . Please help us ensure that all Scouts can enjoy this historical address by making sure that your troop members are respectful not only of the president, but of the wide variety of viewpoints held by Scouts and Scouters in the audience tonight.”

Before departing, Trump took time to relive last year’s election, chiding Clinton for not working hard enough in several Midwestern states. He recalled the “massive” crowds he drew in Wisconsin, a state that a Republican presidential candidate hadn’t won in “many, many years.”

“Michigan came in — and we worked hard there. You know, my opponent didn’t work hard there. She was told she was going to win Michigan and I said, ‘Wait a minute, the car industry is going to move to Mexico.’ ”

“Boooo!” the boys roared.

The fractured relationship between the president and Mr. Sessions — one of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters — has prompted speculation about how long he may endure, particularly given that Mr. Sessions offered Mr. Trump his resignation months ago.

Anthony Scaramucci, the White House’s new communications director, told CNN on Monday that the president and Mr. Sessions needed to “sit down, face-to-face, and have a reconciliation and a discussion of the future.”

“They need to speak and determine what the future of the relationship looks like,” Mr. Scaramucci said. Three cabinet members accompanied Mr. Trump to a Boy Scout event on Monday in West Virginia, but Mr. Sessions, who was an Eagle Scout, was not among them.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, denied a report on Monday that he was being considered as a replacement for Mr. Sessions and expressed support for him, telling CNN he “made the right choice” to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry.

Mr. Sessions has been forceful in pressing the Trump administration’s agenda in its first six months, enacting hard-line policies on immigration and criminal charging and sentencing, and dismantling some significant legacies of the Obama administration.

Addressing federal prosecutors on Friday in Philadelphia, Mr. Sessions signaled that he wanted to charge ahead in enacting policy priorities “under Trump’s direction.”

Key constituencies, including many members of law enforcement, said they had no desire to see the Justice Department’s leadership upended. “From our standpoint, the attorney general is doing a fine job in furtherance of the president’s agenda,” said James Pasco, the senior adviser to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

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He said that Mr. Trump had “made exactly the right choice for attorney general.”

Mr. Sessions has underscored his subordinacy to Mr. Trump in recent days, standing in contrast to the emphasis he has placed for years on the independence of Justice Department officials.

As a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during his years as a Republican senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions repeatedly asked Justice Department nominees to pledge their independence from the president.

In 2015, in questioning Sally Q. Yates before her confirmation as deputy attorney general, Mr. Sessions made clear that he believed the Justice Department should push back if the president ever issued an “improper” directive. “You have to watch out because people will be asking you to do things,” Mr. Sessions said, “and you need to say no.”

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At his own confirmation hearing in January, he repeated that belief.

“The office of attorney general is not a normal political office,” Mr. Sessions said. “He or she cannot be a mere rubber stamp.”

While the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, longstanding practice has been for it to operate free from interference by the White House.

“There’s no regulation anywhere that says the president can’t tell the attorney general to drop an investigation or start an investigation,” said Matthew Miller, a former spokesman for the department under the Obama administration. “But independence is so ingrained in the culture of D.O.J. it’s the norm that’s developed over time.”

Mr. Trump has criticized how the Justice Department defended some of his policies, including his ban on travelers from certain predominantly Muslim countries. In recent weeks, the president trained his attacks not just on Mr. Sessions, who recused himself in March from the Russia inquiry, but also on his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed a special counsel to lead that inquiry in May.

If Mr. Sessions were to resign or be fired, Mr. Trump could use a procedural step to name a replacement who would allow the president to assert greater control over the special counsel investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

With the Senate due to leave for its annual August recess, a possible path exists for Mr. Trump to use a recess appointment clause to name a successor and circumvent the typical confirmation process. Although the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has decided to cut the break short, should it last at least 10 days, Mr. Trump would have constitutional authority to unilaterally fill any vacant position that normally requires Senate confirmation, which includes the post of attorney general.

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That step would allow Mr. Trump to evade congressional demands that his pick make assurances about the Russia investigation as a condition of confirmation, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas at Austin law professor.

Under a recess appointment, an attorney general could stay in that role until January 2019 and would oversee the special counsel.

“The recess appointments clause would allow Trump, at least constitutionally, to put just about anybody into Sessions’s job, including someone who would have no qualms about firing the special counsel,” Mr. Vladeck said. “Then the question is not whether there would be any legal response — because that is perfectly within the president’s power — but whether that alienates congressional Republicans.”

Congressional Republicans could block such a move by refusing to let the Senate go into a lengthy recess. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that a recess must be at least 10 days to prompt the president’s recess-appointment powers, and lawmakers of both parties, under the Bush and Obama administrations, have used their control of at least one chamber to block presidents from making such unilateral appointments.

That tactic involves sending a single senator into the otherwise empty chamber to bang the gavel every few days during a lengthy vacation, breaking up the long recess into a series of short ones — each too brief to trigger the president’s powers. The court’s 2014 ruling deemed such “pro forma” sessions to be real for the purpose of preventing recess appointments.

However, Congress has never done so when both chambers and the White House are controlled by the same party.

Mr. Trump could also simply let Mr. Rosenstein become acting attorney general until a successor was confirmed, or he could seek to temporarily fill the position with any other Senate-confirmed official from elsewhere in the government under the Vacancies Act.

Mr. Sessions vowed last week to serve “as long as that is appropriate.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senator John McCain will make a return to the U.S. capitol on Tuesday to play what could be a crucial role in keeping Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare afloat.

McCain, who is battling brain cancer at his Arizona home, is set to help decide whether the repeal push will move forward or perhaps be abandoned entirely.

Senators will be asked whether to begin debate on the Senate floor on a healthcare overhaul that would supplant the 2010 Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

A loss would force Senate leaders, who have struggled to amass support for their version of an overhaul, to find another strategy or move on to other legislative matters.

President Donald Trump has been increasingly critical of Republican senators and their failure to pass a bill. Trump held an event at the White House on Monday in which he chastised them, saying they “have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare.”

The vote in the divided chamber was expected to be extremely tight, making McCain’s return critical to the repeal effort.

McCain has said that he typically votes to open legislative debates such as these, but has also voiced concerns about the Senate bill and said he would try to address them on the floor.

He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer earlier this month after surgery to remove a blood clot and had not been expected to attend Tuesday’s vote. His office, however, released a statement late Monday announcing his return.

Should enough Republicans vote to move forward, senators would begin debating the bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April. But that bill likely would be heavily modified through the amendment process.

Some senators said it was time to either tackle the issue on the Senate floor or move on to other matters.

“Now it’s time to fish or cut bait,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds. “Let’s get on with it. We have a lot of other things to do.”

No Democrat is expected to vote in favor of opening debate, meaning that Republicans, who hold 52 seats in the 100-seat chamber, cannot afford to lose more than two of their own.

Senator Susan Collins has been the only Republican who has publicly said she will vote against opening debate, but it remained possible that she could be joined by other Republicans concerned about the form the legislation might ultimately take.

Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican who is expected to be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, would step in the case of tie and vote to move forward.

Reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Cornwell, Richard Cowan and James Oliphant; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing by Mary Milliken and Michael Perry