-Our next guest is the wife of the late Senator John McCain
and the chair of the board of the McCain Institute,
where she leads the Human Trafficking Advisory Council.
Please welcome to the show Cindy McCain.
How are you, Cindy?
-Thank you. I'm well.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
-It's always lovely to see you.
And I want to talk about the fact
that you are a lifelong Republican
who has endorsed Joe Biden.
I did not realize, however, that Dr. Jill Biden introduced you
and your late husband, Senator John McCain.
-Yes, she did.
It was fun. It was in Hawaii.
I was invited with my parents to a reception
that was being held for a group of senators
on their way through Hawaii to China,
and John happened to be there.
And although I didn't see this when it initially happened,
but I guess when I came in the room, he was staring at me.
And she said, "Go meet her.
Go over there and talk to her."
So he did.
And the rest is history.
-Was his -- Did he have a good approach game
when he first came over?
Were you interested immediately?
-Yeah. No, I was.
I mean, you know -- when he walked over to me, I --
"Ooh, this guy's really cute."
And later on that night, we went and had a drink
at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel,
which is -- you know, it has tiki --
tiki torches and everything else going on.
And then he called me from China.
He wound up calling me from China when he got there.
So it was -- I guess it was love at first sight.
It was fun.
-Can you talk a little about the transition you made
from, one, sort of privately supporting Joe Biden
to making the decision to go public with it?
-Mm-hmm.
Well, you know, it was gradual in some respects.
You know, I, like everyone else, had watched
what was going on with this president and with --
and the actions that the White House
were taking on various issues.
And, you know, it started -- like everyone,
I spent my day yelling at the TV when I was watching it.
And the final blow for me,
not only just the lack of empathy and compassion,
the lack of character, the absolute unbelievable issue
of not working in a bipartisan fashion at all,
but the final blow for me
was when he called our troops losers and suckers.
And I have three members of my family, two sons
and a daughter-in-law, that are serving.
And I -- at that point I said,
"I can sit here and yell at the TV,
or I can get up and do something."
And so that's what I did, and I decided to openly endorse him.
I am a Republican, though,
and I am going to remain a Republican.
-So I wonder what you would say to other Republicans
whose intention is to, obviously,
stay loyal to the party, who are making this decision
between maybe not supporting the President,
but also being hesitant to vote for Joe Biden.
Maybe a lot of them would say,
"Well, I'm just not going to vote at all."
What would you say to them?
-Well, that's what I'm trying to help avoid, obviously.
Judging by the outcome of all --
Now what? 67 million early ballots have been turned in.
I think we're not going to have a problem
with people not voting.
But what I do want people to realize, look, this is --
you know, I don't agree with Joe on everything.
I believe that Joe will work
in a bipartisan fashion, though, to reach common ground
and work on issues that are important for us.
And more importantly, I mean, a large part of this is the fact
that Joe has a COVID plan.
Unlike the White House
and the rest of the members, he believes it's real.
He believes and talks to the scientists involved.
And now, you know,
it's time that we put his plan into action.
It's things like that that I tell Republicans
when they ask me.
You know, it's -- I'm tired of some --
of my president not having my back on things.
And more importantly,
not having our country's back internationally.
You know, we've left our allies behind.
We've left our --
We've withdrawn from treaties, et cetera.
I mean, our country is not well respected overseas
either in all of this.
There's a lot at stake here.
-Your husband was attacked by the President
in his trademark style of cruelty,
not only when he was alive, but after he passed.
Do you think John would enjoy the fact
that he's still taking up
so much head space of the President?
-Our family's talked about that a little bit.
I know one thing for sure.
John would be very disappointed in what's going on right now.
This is not -- This was not, you know, what he believed in,
nor would he ever have wanted to ever happen.
I think the fact that he is taking up head space, though,
is kind of hilarious on occasion.
-You mentioned the lack of the sort of COVID response plan.
And I think that maybe runs parallel
with Senator McCain's decision
to give the thumbs-down to the Obamacare repeal.
It wasn't that he was a great fan of Obamacare,
but he recognized in the moment
that there was not a replacement.
Did you talk to him a great deal about that moment
when he, you know, now quite significantly,
broke with his party?
-Right. We talked about it beforehand.
And, you know -- things like that, I --
To give you a little behind-the-scenes thing,
a lot was going on in the cloakroom behind.
The Vice President was back there.
The governor of Arizona, I believe, was on the phone.
They were lobbying my husband pretty hard.
But the one thing he knew is that we could not do away
with Obamacare without a plan on the other side
and there was no plan.
So he had, in his mind, and I believe rightly,
as he agreed, it was the right thing to do.
These kinds of votes and decisions,
you know, you don't always --
you're not always popular when you make the right decision
and John knew that, and John abided by it.
And I'm glad he did what he did. I really am.
But they did put a full-court press on him.
-Obviously right now in the last week with the campaign,
you've been through this -- -Crazy time right now.
Last week of the campaign is nuts.
-What is the energy like?
-Oh, it's wild.
No one gets any sleep.
Everyone's really running on coffee
and probably a little liquor, too.
And it's just, you know, it's nonstop.
These last seven days are nonstop
because you've got to get to the finish line.
-We crossed paths during the last seven days in 2008.
-We did. -For all your accomplishments,
you're also a very accomplished sketch actor.
-[ Laughs ] -Here you are.
This was a QVC sketch we did
where, in the final days of the campaign,
the Senator was trying to raise some campaign funds.
And you did a very good job in the sketch.
Do you have fond memories of that night?
-I do. You know, there -- a lot of --
people say, "Well, aren't campaigns hard?"
and all those things.
And there are some very hard moments.
But doing "SNL" was a fun moment.
And as you know, my husband did it several times.
And I was just grateful to be a part of that.
I had a great time. It was fun.
-Another thing that bonded your family with the Bidens is,
and you mentioned it earlier, military service.
You know, obviously it's been true of both your families.
Is that something that John and Joe would speak about often?
-Often, yes.
You know, we -- our sons both left
at about the same time for Iraq.
And so, here, Joe was running for vice president,
my husband was running for president,
and we both had two sons serving in Iraq at the same time.
You know, it's not only a bonding experience
for the families, but it made both families --
ours, and of course the Biden family,
understand what the families of troops
go through when they deploy.
I mean, it's hard.
And so I -- so he has a different perspective
and a good perspective on what it means
to serve your country in the military
and the effect it has on families.
But more importantly, you know, we have that --
that commonality, but as you know,
we have the commonality of glioblastoma,
which hit both of our families.
And so it would be hard to separate the Biden and McCain
family in years to come
because we're just too good of friends.
-You also have spoken of former Vice President Biden's empathy.
And I guess that was on display.
He did come and visit your husband in the final days, yeah?
-He did. He came out.
My husband was still alert,
a little bit -- he wasn't too alert,
but he was alert and awake and recognized Joe
and could talk a little bit.
And Joe had just been through this with Beau.
I mean, he'd just been through it.
And here he is, out in Arizona.
Number one, joking like crazy with John.
John was laughing as best he could.
I mean, it was fun to watch and just the normal things.
We prayed together.
And then he consoled our family.
And I don't know that I could have had the strength,
having lost a son,
to have gone into and helped another family
with the same problem that we had.
So it it's an incredible --
I mean, we do have a lot in common, and Joe --
This is a perfect example of how Joe gives.
He just always gives, and he cares so much about people.
-Well, thank you so much for taking the time
to have this conversation. -Thank you.
-Always lovely to see you. Love to you and your family.
-Thank you very much. Same to you.