The Daily - The Paradoxes of John McCain

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

Senator John McCain was proud of his reputation as a maverick in American politics. Through pivotal moments in his life — as a prisoner of war, a young congressman, a presidential candidate, and, ultimately, an elder statesman — that reputation was both validated and challenged. Guests: Elisabeth Bumiller, the Washington bureau chief for The New York Times; Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent; Mark Landler, who covers the White House for The Times; and Scott Shane, who writes about national security for The Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Senator John McCain was proud of his reputation as a rare maverick in American politics. Through pivotal moments in his life, as a prisoner of war, a young congressman, a presidential candidate, and ultimately an

elder statesman. That reputation was both validated and challenged. It's Monday, August 27th. It was October 1967, and John McCain was a Navy flyer. Mark Landler covers the White House for The Times. He'd had a fairly undistinguished career up until this point. He graduated near the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy. He was the son of Navy royalty. Both his father and his grandfather were

admirals. But he hadn't really done a lot to justify the attention up until this October day when he took his fighter plane on a bombing raid of a power plant in downtown Hanoi. On a bombing raid of a power plant in downtown Hanoi. We came in. There was heavy and concentrated both anti-aircraft fire and surface-to-air missiles were everywhere. He is flying through heavy anti-aircraft fire. And just as I released the bombs and started to pull back on the stick, a surfaced air missile hit and took the right wing off my airplane. One of the missiles takes off his wing.

My airplane violently gyrated. I ejected. And his plane crash lands into a lake in the middle of Hanoi. Wow. Broke my arm, both my arms. And when I floated to the surface, some Vietnamese came out and pulled me into shore. The North Vietnamese crowds who witnessed the accident drag him from the plane.

The crowd was rather angry, which is understandable. They hit me and broke my shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted me a couple of times. They rifle butt and bayoneted me a couple of times. And his tormentors actually bring him literally on the verge of death to this military prison known as the Hanoi Hilton. He was subject to constant interrogation in addition to physical abuse. He dropped to 105 pounds. Soup twice a day, piece of bread usually, and four months a year it was a greens kind of a thing

that looked like clipped grass. Sometimes there would be some meat in it, sometimes not. How is your food? Comment la nourriture? It's not like Paris. And incredibly, there's footage of McCain in his prison cell. What is your name? McCain.

How old are you? 31. What is your rank in the army? Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. Because his North Vietnamese captors allowed a French journalist into the prison. I would just like to tell my wife. I would just like to tell my wife. I hope she will get well.

I hope she will get well. I love her. I love her. que j'irai bien, que je l'aime. J'espère la revoir bientôt. J'apprécierais si vous la disiez. C'est tout. C'est tout. Thank you, officer. Thank you. As a prisoner, he did give his captors names of people in his squadron and targets in North Vietnam.

On the other hand, he also famously gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers. As a kind of dodge. As a kind of dodge. He did sign a confession, as other prisoners in his situation did. To the Vietnamese people and the government of the BRVN, from John Sidney McCain, 624787, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy. I, as a U.S. Airman, am guilty of crimes against the Vietnamese country and people.

But on the other hand, he rejected an offer for an early release. Can you tell me why you refused early release? It wasn't an easy decision because I was in very poor physical health. But I also knew the code of conduct said, sick and injured go first, and then by order of capture. Everett Alvarez had been there three years before I ever got there. So in every case, he acted with genuine valor, but he also made concessions to the desperation of his situation.

aspiration of his situation. And in 1973, as the American war in Vietnam ends, John McCain is released, comes home a war hero, having survived this hideous ordeal. He's greeted by President Nixon. There's a very famous photo of him on crutches in his Navy whites meeting the president. a very famous photo of him on crutches in his Navy whites meeting the president, and a star is born. It took me about 45 minutes to adjust. I've never had a nightmare. I've never had a flashback. I've never had any difficulties at all. Some physical difficulties, obviously, but it didn't take me any time at all to adjust. Mark, what does it mean to come back as a war hero from a war

that at that point hardly anyone is supporting? Well, this is the interesting aspect of John McCain's wartime experience. Unlike some previous well-known warriors, John Kerry comes to mind. John McCain was taken prisoner at a time when the American public had largely turned against the war. And this made John McCain's return all the more poignant. Unlike John Kerry, he didn't come home and transform himself into an anti-war figure. He was very much a symbol of wartime service and patriotism, but at a moment when there wasn't much of an appetite in American society for this kind

of figure. Still among some segments of society, and particularly among the Republican voters that John McCain was appealing to, he was still a heroic figure. And he was able to harness his story, the heroism, the gallantry of his experience to propel himself into politics. And in 1982, John McCain is elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican from his adoptive state, Arizona. It is an attitude about this state and this country,

an attitude that says, we have done much that is good, but we can do better. He's for Arizona and America. So after a couple of terms in the House, John McCain ran for the Senate seat of Barry Goldwater, the conservative icon from Arizona, and won. And it didn't take long, really, for Senator McCain

to get into some trouble in the Senate, trouble that would really be a defining moment in his career in several respects. Carl Hulse reports on Congress. Hearings begin this week into what has already been called a major congressional scandal. So in April 1987, McCain and a few other senators met with bank regulators to intervene on behalf of Charles Keating,

who ran a savings and loan. At the time, the savings and loan business in the United States was collapsing. It was quite an economic problem. Well, the savings and loan crisis thing has really struck a responsive chord around the United States. We've been getting more mail. So Mr. Keating was a powerful Arizona resident, and his big company was in trouble, and he wanted the bank regulators to back off. So John McCain and four other senators met with these bank regulators to pressure them to allow the Keating Savings and Loan to do more business. They were being too strict with them. This didn't get a lot of attention at the time,

but the problem as it was to become was that Mr. Keating had bankrolled all of these senators. Keating and his associates gave a total of $1.4 million to the senators. The senators then pressured former regulator Edwin Gray to go easy on Keating. Senator McCain had a social relationship with him as well, and it flown on his jet to his private island in the Bahamas. Keating has become a symbol of the worst financial scandal in U.S. history and the worst ethics scandal in the history of the Senate. And what happened was Keating, his whole business collapsed, cost the government about $3 billion, and they had been selling these unsecured bonds to their clients.

So there were a lot of retirees who lost their life savings by investing in these bonds. And so the federal government and the FBI started looking into Mr. Keating and came across these meetings, and it was big trouble for what became known as the Keating Five. Hmm.

Never before have five senators been accused of intervening with federal regulators to help a campaign contributor. They ended up before the ethics committee. It was televised hearings wall to wall. Wow. Let me point out that the key to this, Mr. Bennett, is not whether Mr. Keating was a friend of mine or not. The key answer to this, Mr. Keating was a friend of mine or not. The key answer to your question is whether or not I would do anything improper for a friend of mine. And the record clearly indicates that on March 24th, when I was asked to do something improper by a friend, I refused to do so. And you know, that situation, you just look guilty anyway, right? you just look guilty anyway, right? Charles Keating didn't help anyone's cause because he was asked once if he thought that his payments to these people had influenced their positions

on his behalf. And he said something to the effect of, I sure hope so. So he, you know, he made it pretty clear what he was trying to buy. And by the end of the 1990s, everyone was gone from the Keating Five. They were all gone from the Senate, except for John McCain. He stuck it out. Yeah, it's very fair to say this was by far the low point of John McCain's congressional career. He considered himself, you know, a patriot, to have great integrity. His character couldn't be called into question, and it was called into question. And it was found wanting. It just wasn't found as wanting as some of the other people involved. The most unfair description of this proceeding is the label Keating 5. That label implies that the five senators' actions

are the same. They are not. But I think it was really not only a searing experience, but a formative experience for him. How so? I really think it helped form his maverick character in the Senate. He wanted to recover from this and show that that was really not him. And of course, he went on to try with all his might and power to change the campaign finance laws of the country. So bottom line, if you had it all to do over again, would you still go for McCain-Fankel? Absolutely. You've seen the corruption in Washington. We have former members of Congress

in federal prison. The approval rating of Congress is down around 11 percent. I remember this being a major moment in the history of campaign finance. Yes, this was a big, big deal. People thought this was going to change the way that campaigns are run. But guess what? People always find a way around laws and restrictions. And the Supreme Court in multiple rulings has really sort of disabled the main elements of the McCain-Feingold bill. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican, now took it all the way to the Supreme Court. He and John McCain fought it out in the Supreme Court. And it feels like McCain-Feingold is from an entirely different era when both parties, Feingold being a Democrat, McCain being a Republican, could actually break bread and

make legislation over something as polarizing as how we finance campaigns. Yeah, is there a subject that could be any more politically divisive than political funding of the various campaigns, right? This is the thing that really usually separates the parties. But he managed to do it over the objections of the House Republican leadership, which is really amazing when you think back on it. I mean, this is like the part of John McCain that everyone misses and wishes was president in Washington right now. He would fight like mad with everyone, but he also wanted to make deals with everyone. You know, he and Ted Kennedy would scream at each other basically on the Senate floor

and then work out a deal on immigration. McCain knew how to be a political foe, but also a negotiator and how to cut a deal. It's 852 here in New York. I'm Brian Gumbel. We understand that there has been a plane crash on the southern tip of Manhattan. You're looking at the World Trade Center. We understand that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know anything more than that. a veteran and a hawk very much supports the decision to invade Afghanistan and later supports the decision to invade Iraq. Scott Sheen covers national security. We're going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives, but it will be brief. We're going to find out massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and we're going to find the incredible

brutalities that this dictator has inflicted upon the Iraqi people. But he draws a line when he begins to hear that the U.S. is using coercive methods on prisoners and eventually learns that the U.S. is using what, certainly by historical standards, has been considered torture. I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies. Our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights which are protected by international conventions, the United States not only joined, but for the most part, authored. For McCain, who had survived in North Vietnam the most horrific torture over a period of years, he felt he and his fellow American servicemen were essentially better than the people who were torturing them.

They thought, you know, we're people who would never do this to anyone. and in some cases, methods of treatment that have been for centuries the sort of favorite torture methods of infamous despots. And I'm thinking specifically of waterboarding. He is extremely angry and extremely distressed. And as a senior senator, goes right to work in trying to stop this. While some have shamefully sought to minimize the practice of waterboarding, it is clear to me that this practice, which is a simulated execution by drowning, amounts to torture as any reasonable person would define it. And how the Geneva Conventions, of which we are signatories,

on the treatment of prisoners of war defines it. McCain is the one prominent Republican who is absolutely determined to stop torture and inhumane treatment by the United States. And what he says often when people come to him and say, but Senator McCain, Al Qaeda is beheading people. And you're saying we can't waterboard them. And he says repeatedly, this isn't about them. It's about us. Waterboarding nor any other form of torture is not in the best interests of justice, not our security, nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend. And he proposes something that comes to be called the Detainee Treatment Act, which bans cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by any agency

in the military, the CIA, no matter what the situation is. But still at that point, the White House, and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, are lobbying McCain to exempt the CIA, say, oh yeah, we'll ban torture for all the other agencies, fine, but let's exempt the CIA. And Porter Goss, former Republican congressman who has become the CIA director, goes to see McCain, and he is rock solid. There's a description of Goss coming back to the CIA after meeting with McCain, and he's really shaken because he's trying to explain, look, John, this stuff isn't that bad. We have restrictions on it, and it's all within limits. that bad. We have restrictions on it and it's all within limits. And McCain will not listen to him,

just stares straight ahead and keeps saying, it's all torture. Finally, President Bush realizes McCain is not going to change his view, reverses course, and agrees to sign the Detainee Treatment Act. Senator McCain has been a leader to make sure that the United States of America upholds the values of America as we fight and win this war on terror. We've been happy to work with him to achieve a common objective, and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad. So I appreciate your hard work, Senator. You're a good man who honors the values of America.

Scott, I'm struck by the fact that John McCain voted for this war in Iraq, which we now regard as not just flawed, but a very serious mistake. And that that's one of the reasons why we end up with these episodes of torture, that he finds the moral clarity to so oppose. It's a very complicated kind of set of cause and effects. It is, absolutely. And I think he would have said that you can actually conduct a war while treating prisoners humanely. conduct a war while treating prisoners humanely. Later, in recent years, he came to finally publicly state that the invasion of Iraq and war in Iraq had been a mistake. So he regretted that,

but he certainly never wavered in his feeling that the United States should never engage in torture. feeling that the United States should never engage in torture. The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it nonetheless. They must know when the values that define our nation are intentionally disregarded by our security policies, even those policies that are conducted in secret, they must be able to make informed judgments about whether those policies and the personnel who supported them were justified in compromising our values, whether they served a greater good, or whether, as I believe, they stained our national honor. We'll be right back.

We'll be right back. My friends, we face formidable challenges. I'm not afraid of them. I'm prepared for them. I'm not the youngest candidate, but I am the most experienced. I know how the military works, what it can do, what it can do better, and what it should not do. I know how Congress works and how to make it work for the country and not just the re-election of its members. I know how the world works. Obama! Obama! Obama! the world works.

It's the summer of 2008. John McCain was the Republican presidential nominee. Things are not going well. Barack Obama has just come out of the gate as the change agent of the era. I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. He is hope and change. But I've been there long enough of time learning the ways of Washington. He is hope and change. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

And McCain, oddly enough, this is on his second run for president, he has moved from the maverick of the 2000 run to the status quo of Washington. Elizabeth Bumiller is the Washington bureau chief. And so things are not going well at all. Obama has been mostly ahead for much of the campaign. And I remember then at the end of August 2008, there was much speculation about who McCain would put on the ticket. Everyone knew his choice was Senator Joe Lieberman.

I am very pleased and very privileged to introduce to you. But then lo and behold, in the summer of 2008, McCain came out and announced... The next vice president of the United States... Governor Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska. A little-known governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska. A little-known governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, was going to be his running mate. And the political world was flabbergasted.

It is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a very surprising choice, as she has little exposure on the national level. Reporters, the party, the Democrats, voters, people were flabbergasted. I know that when Senator McCain gave me this opportunity, he had a short list of highly qualified men and women. And to have made that list at all, it was a privilege. And to have been chosen brings a great challenge. I know that it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.

What did you make of it? I didn't know what to think. I always remember quickly Googling her. We were all trying frantically to figure out who she was and why he had done this, but we knew sort of why he had done it. She was chosen as kind of a desperation move because Obama was such an exciting, hot candidate, they felt they had to do something to rev up that campaign and get it moving into the fall. So they came up with Sarah Palin. And I have to say, she did rev up the campaign, but perhaps in ways they didn't anticipate. You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience.

What did you mean by that? The main problem was that she just knew nothing about foreign policy or anything about the federal government. She had barely been out of the country. That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kind of made to, I don't know, you know, reporters. Mocked. Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah. I was reading today a copy of the New York Times. I was reading today a copy of the New York Times. And I was really interested to read in there about Barack Obama's friends from Chicago. What also happened is she was very, very hot on the campaign trail.

She did draw big crowds, and the crowds would get very, very angry. There'd be shouts in the crowd of, off with his head. And this is about Obama, obviously. And they didn't do a lot to tamp it down. And so McCain was getting an awful lot of heat about those rallies. I can remember being in Wisconsin and the crowd got really, really ugly. There was a lot of complaints about the lamestream media. That's what Sarah Palin called us. And the crowd kind of turned on us. They were very close to us And the crowd kind of turned on us. They were very close to us, and they were sort of shouting at us.

It was, you know, it was nerve-wracking. The rallies today are really reminiscent to me of those old rallies with Sarah Palin and John McCain. They were tame in comparison to what's going on today. But it had the same emotion, the same edge, the same anger from those supporters. I suppose, given John McCain's reputation, he probably never could have imagined that picking Sarah Palin might have contributed to that kind of politics. And I'm guessing

he wouldn't have been pleased at that outcome. Looking back on his selection of Sarah Palin, it's just another example of what a complicated man John McCain is. He did it in a moment of desperation, put aside whatever doubts he had about it at the time, realized, I think fairly quickly, that it was a terrible mistake, that it was irresponsible, and since then has said he did the wrong thing. Right. It feels like McCain can have such moral clarity in this career that he's had. And so how do you put this decision to have Sarah Palin as his running mate into that context? Did it matter more to win or did it matter more to pick the right person? Well, obviously at that point it mattered more to win.

I got to ask you a question. I do not believe in, I can't trust Obama. He did have moments though of moral clarity, I have to say. There was a moment late in the campaign, it was in Minnesota, where it was a town hall style meeting. And, you know, he had been under a lot of criticism for allowing these rallies to go on. And at one point, this was a well-known moment in the campaign, a woman stood up at this meeting and said, you know, that Obama was an Arab. I have read about him, and he's not, he's not, he's a, he's an Arab. He is not. He's not. He's an Arab. He is not. And it was meant as an insult.

And McCain went up right close to her and said, ma'am. No, ma'am. No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that's what this campaign is all about. He's not. Thank you. And it was really a great moment for McCain. He did the right thing at that moment. So that's John McCain.

Very complicated man, shows great courage, and he's human like the rest of us. So it is July 2017, and President Trump, along with his Republican allies, appear on the brink of accomplishing something that they and he had long campaigned for, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans think they finally have the votes teed up in the Senate to repeal the act, to gut the heart of the act, which is the individual mandate, by locking up every single Republican vote they can, which would only give them a margin of one vote in the Senate. in the Senate.

As they reach this fateful morning of July 28th, 2017, the key outstanding vote belongs to John McCain. He's just been diagnosed with brain cancer, he's been away from the Capitol, and he is returning exclusively to cast arguably the most important vote of his long career. And so Senator McCain ambles out on the floor of the Senate. He's visibly frailer looking than he was before his illness, and he has a wound over his eyebrow. So here's a guy who's literally bearing the scars of the illness that he's suffering through. As he walks onto the floor, people from both sides of the aisle are looking at him expectantly. He is surrounded by his Republican colleagues, but they're actually deferential. They know his history. They're not sure exactly which way he's going to go. differential they know his history they're not sure exactly which way he's going to go democrats are watching him i think some with an air of resignation that perhaps in the end he'll

fall into line he huddles with a couple of his colleagues who had planned to vote against the aca lisa murkowski of alaska and susan collins of maine we can't let this moment slip by we've wrestled with this issue. We've watched the consequences of the status quo. People who sent us here expect us to begin this debate. And then he speaks with the vice president, Mike Pence. But finally, after all of this kind of drama, he turns and he holds his hand up high and his thumb down, making clear to everyone in the most visible and vivid possible way that he's going to vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

He's going to defy his party and he's going to defy President Trump. Senate Republicans trying to repeal and replace Obamacare and that vote coming up short when the Maverick made his mark. Senator John McCain just days removed from his cancer diagnosis stunning the chamber turning the thumbs down on the repeal bill. It happened just feet away from Republican leader Mitch McConnell prompting an audible gasp in the chamber. And with that thumbs down, he kills the Republican repeal effort and preserves, for the moment at least, the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Is there anything political about this for McCain? Or do you see this as a purely moral moment for him?

Well, in the moment, McCain's vote felt like a very moral act. It was against the wishes of his party, against the White House. He had long warned that unless his fellow Republicans could address the issues in the repeal that he objected to, that he wouldn't compromise. And in the end, he refused to compromise. But it ended up being quite political as well, because several months later, after again holding out, John McCain fell into line with his colleagues and voted in favor of a massive tax cut bill. Included in that bill were provisions that gutted some of the same features of Obamacare that he had voted months earlier to preserve and increased by 13 million

the number of uninsured people in the United States. So in the end, he reversed some of what he had stood up for that previous July. Mark, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. I'm the luckiest guy on earth. I have served America's cause, the cause of our security and the security of our friends, the cause of freedom and equal justice all my adult life. I haven't always served it well. I haven't even always appreciated what I was serving. But among the few compensations of old age is the acuity

of hindsight. I see now that I was part of something important that drew me along in its wake even when I was diverted by other interests. I was, knowingly or not, along for the ride as America made the future better than the past. And I've enjoyed it every single day of it. The good ones and the not so good ones. I've been inspired by the service of better patriots than me. On Sunday, the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, said he would appoint McCain's replacement after a week of services honoring the senator. McCain will lie in state inside the U.S. Capitol,

followed by the Arizona Statehouse, before he is buried on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland. Before his death, McCain requested that two of his former rivals for the presidency, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, deliver eulogies at his funeral and asked that President Trump not attend the service. attend the service. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. you