what has become of me could happen only in america. ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ i have lived an honorable life. and i am proud of my life.

i think all of us think about death, but i think more about life. there's so many days in my life that are more than coincidental that it has made me believe that i am here for a reason. i've been tested on a number of occasions. i haven't always done the right thing. and i think i understand given my family's history and given my experiences, the important thing is not to look back and figure out all the things i should have done, and there's lots of those, but to look back with gratitude, you will never talk to anyone that is as fortunate as john mccain.

you ready? or not? you ready? one, two. [ laughter ] >> so great. i love that. >> look at her. come on, honey. come on. that's a girl. come on. come on. up. >> bring the ball. >> come on, burma. come on, honey. >> i got a phone call from my mom that said jack, you're going to see some stuff in the news. your father has brain cancer. i'm with him right now. he knows his diagnosis and he's the same as he's always been.

he said all right, let's push forward. >> you know, these doctors keep talking to me about people who if you tell them the truth then they just give up and die, that you really want to -- and i keep saying to them, just tell me. just tell me. that's all i want to know. you know? some say well, it's not good and others say well, you know, it's just bullshit and it really drives me crazy but then i talk to other doctor friends of mine and say most people that's not what they want to hear. why wouldn't they want to hear? you know? why wouldn't they want to spend a few more days here, you know? >> yes, honey, i'll throw the ball in a minute. >> he's better in arizona, i think, health-wise but we sort of collectively made the decision if he doesn't work that he would probably get sick faster because work feeds him and it's so much of a part of who he is. so i'm very supportive of him being in d.c.

>> all right, guys. good morning, good morning. good morning. good morning. good morning. back! back. come on. come on. you can -- good morning. how are you, my friend from tmz? >> did you watch the football game last night? >> yes, i did. that's why i'm in such a bad mood this morning. >> i hope things get better. >> thank you. >> he's authentic. he can't help himself. sometimes his authenticity is a political problem and other times it's a great advantage. >> none of us like to be unpopular in our workplace. and i've seen mccain be unpopular time and time again. sometimes for excellent reasons. sometimes for not great reasons.

we don't always agree. i've got a job to do, he's got a job to do but i never doubt his motivation as to why he's doing it. >> you're not going to bet against the united states of america. you know? >> he tries to study an issue. he tries to come to a conclusion that's in keeping with his values but also, you know, rooted in reality. >> he knows this is not a straight line in life. there's going to be curves and corners and that's the way it goes. nobody's perfect. you're going to make mistakes. the question is, how do you handle those mistakes? >> what's going on in syria? good morning. how are you? good morning. >> i wouldn't bet against him. he faces his mortality now with the same kind of fearlessness that has characterized his life. >> we're going to keep people waiting here. >> if you want to really know him, his favorite book is "for

whom the bell tolls" and the protagonist in that, robert jordan, goes to fight the spanish civil war and he knows that it's a hopeless cause and yet he gives his life for it. >> senator mccain? army nominee secretary, are we going to get a hearing soon? >> that's a very mccainesque view of himself in the world. the harder the cause, even lost, the better the cause. >> senator, on health care -- >> i've got to go. >> when i was 12 years old, i found a four-leaf clover. i want to my father's library to put the four-leaf clover in a book. i started reading that book and i was mesmerized, and i didn't stop reading until i was finished. it is still the load stone, the guide that i have, and it's called "for whom the bell tolls." robert jordan is my hero then

when i was that age and robert jordan is my hero today. nothing is better than the story of someone who sacrifices for causes greater than themselves, and robert jordan was that. ♪ >> i was born on the 29th of august 1936 at a naval base in the panama canal zone. my family goes back military all the way to the revolutionary war. and my life seemed to be charted out for me. i did feel pressure from the time i was very small to do well. as a young man going to the

naval academy, i was following in the footsteps of my father and my grandfather. >> yes, i was once one of you, six decades ago in the age of sail. i was -- [ laughter ] i was a non-distinguished member of the class of 1958. my superiors didn't hold me in very high esteem in those days. their disapproval was measured in the hundreds of miles of extra duty i marched in my time here. but i realized a little later in life that i hadn't fully appreciated all that the academy was trying to teach me. lessons about sacrificing for something more important than yourself, lessons about courage and humility. >> god only knows how i graduated from the naval academy. i didn't enjoy studying.

i just knew what i had to do to get by. there is no doubt that i was a rebel and always breaking the rules. everybody knew who my father was and so i thumbed my nose at him. but at the same time, i didn't want to embarrass my family. >> john's father just emanated power and strength. one day his father came down on a saturday to take us to lunch and for some reason they got into a bit of an argument. john was walking at a fast pace swinging his left arm and i remember his father was walking the same way, swinging his left arm. i said these guys are so much alike, they are combatants with a penchant for leadership. there's just a natural ability. you can't teach that kind of leadership. you have to be born with that.

>> admiral mccain, what would you say about the importance in of leadership in the navy? >> leadership is the single most important factor as far as achievement, success, and the completion of a job to be done. and furthermore, you have got to have a tolerance for the failings of individuals because all of us have them. >> my father was a submarine commander in world war ii in the pacific. my grandfather was the commander of the aircraft carriers in the pacific. but i always knew that i was going to be a naval aviator. i was going to go out there and fly airplanes and shoot down migs. >> so far in 1967, the number of u.s. troops killed in vietnam has nearly doubled. >> air power is the one thing we most conspicuously have and the enemy has not. >> during that period of time,

they decided to escalate the air war over north vietnam. we started striking targets inside hanoi, which we had never done before. i got over the target and rolled in, and just as i released my bombs a missile took the wing off the airplane. so i ejected. when i hit the air stream it broke my arms and also my leg. strangely enough, i landed in a lake in the center of the city of hanoi. someone took the picture of the vietnamese pulling me out of the water, and they were not happy. one of them stabbed me with a bayonet and another one smashed my shoulder.

and then some north vietnamese army came and they took me to the prison camp that we called the hanoi hilton. >> yesterday, over hanoi, three american planes were shot down and at least two of their pilots captured. one of them was lieutenant commander john mccain iii, the son of a u.s. naval commander in europe. >> i came in from school one day and my mother was sitting at the kitchen table crying and i said what's the matter? she said well, your father's been shot down. and that's all i know right now but i expect to hear more from your granddad pretty soon. >> when i first found out, i didn't understand at all myself. i was dumb and happy. i didn't really understand what it was all about. it never occurred to me that anything would happen to him. he was always kind of invincible

in my mind. >> i got a call in the middle of the night and my father and mother were both on the phone, which is very unusual. usually one would call me, not both. they told me john was shot down. and i remember pausing and saying what do we do now? my father said we just pray for the boy. >> it's hard to describe the military heritage of my family. yes, my dad was worried about me, but the fact is, he knew that mccains were doing what mccains were bred to do, and if it takes you into harm's way that is our profession.

the injuries that i experienced were severe, and they said we'll give you medical help if you give us information. i said, i can't. a few hours later, an interrogator came in and said your father is a big admiral. and i said, yes. he said we're going to take you to the hospital. >> i got a letter from a frenchman. he said he'd been in north vietnam and he'd seen john. >> what's your name? >> john mccain. >> he made a film about him. he gave me a copy of it. john's folks watched it. i watched it. >> who is your father? >> he is known as admiral john mccain. >> his dad kept telling me, carol, this could be years. i didn't believe that. but he kept telling me it could

be years before he gets home. >> i would just like to tell my wife i love her and hope to see her soon. and i'd appreciate if you'd tell her. >> one day the interrogator came in and he said our doctors tell me that you are not getting well. they took me into a room with two other americans. they wanted me to die there rather than in the hospital. and those two literally nursed me back to health. and the love and affection that both of those guys bestowed on me was something i will never, ever forget. but as soon as the vietnamese found out i could walk, the next day i found myself alone in the cell.

i was about 2 1/2 years in solitary confinement. solitary confinement's great strength is it makes the person feel alone. and when you're alone, then you don't have the encouragement, the camaraderie, the strength. there's a reason why throughout history they have used solitary confinement. and then one day i was taken up to interrogation. there was a guy there, erudite, spoke perfect french, perfect english, sat down, and there was cigarettes and there was tea, and finally he said, well, you know, everybody wants you to go home because the doctors say that you can't live. and i said our code of conduct says that we go by order of capture. he said except for sick and injured.

and i said but i'm not that sick and injured. i'm getting better. i can get around and i know what this is. i know it's for propaganda. and he kicked over the chair behind him and he said, "they taught you too well." and walked out and slammed the door leaving me and one of the interrogators in dead silence for about two minutes. and he said, "things will be very bad for you now, mccain." and the fun began. we call it either the bar and strap or the bar and ropes treatment, and that has to do with putting my arms with my wrists opposed behind my back and fastened with handcuffs. they took the strap and they tied it to the handcuffs. each time he laced that strap, he pulled and pulled and pulled

until my arms are virtually parallel to one another and touching. >> they were really, really rough. i mean, to the point where they rebroke my arm. they did all kinds of stuff. it was so bad that i thought i was going to die, and so i wrote out a confession, war crimes confession. and i will be ashamed and embarrassed about that for my whole life. i was aware that they were going to use it for propaganda purposes, and i thought about the honor of my family. >> i knew his father. his father was pacific fleet commander. so all the military action we ordered in vietnam was carried out by him. but i never heard admiral mccain talk to the president about his son.

it would be against the code of honor of the mccains. >> my dad never talked about john, especially never asked anybody to do anything for him or about it. but dad made a practice every year that he was commander in chief, on christmas he would helicopter to the dmz where the north and south vietnamese were officially divided and he would walk away from those escorting him and he would just look across that border, trying to somehow feel john or send a message to him. >> i want you to understand that for those of you, and there are many in this command who will spend this christmas away from home and your loved ones, that what you have done and the sacrifices that you have made in the pursuit of your individual duties will more than make up for this separation.

>> i was a year and a month when he was shot down. my recollection of him was next to zero. it was my mom and my brothers and i for a really long time. those memories i have. >> mrs. mccain has received several letters from her captured husband but none in six months. >> the most recent one i have was written last june. it says, "dear carol, i hope you can still think of the really great times we had together. it is time for our fifth anniversary this year and i am hoping i will see you soon." >> how does he sound in that letter? >> he sounds kind of depressed to me. when he says "i hope you can still think of the really good times we had together," it sounds like, you know, he's worried that i might forget or something. that bothers me and makes me feel very badly. there isn't any way i could possibly forget.

>> you know, you don't really know but in your heart you're like of course he's going to come back, he told me he's coming back. >> how long do you think the vietnamese are going to keep your daddy prisoner? >> probably till the war's over. >> how long will that be? >> probably until summer. >> to me, nothing else mattered materially other than i was told my dad is still alive. >> you think it will be over sooner, huh? >> i want it to be over sooner. >> because? >> i just want him back. >> after about four years they changed the treatment and put us into large rooms with, say, 20 or 25 in each cell. the beatings stopped and there was clearly a change in policy towards the prisoners.

>> all of a sudden on the 18th of december the whole sky just lit up with explosions and from then round-the-clock bombing. >> the christmas bombing was the use of b-52s against tactical targets in hanoi. president nixon decided and i agreed that we had reached a point where only a shocking event would show to them that we were absolutely determined to bring the war to a conclusion. >> we applauded and we cheered and we sang the "star-spangled banner." and the north vietnamese were panicked. they were panicked. >> when that bombing was over, there was very strange silence and then the announcement on the radio that they were going to sign an agreement to end the

war. >> a few days later, all the prisoners were called out and the commanding officer of the camp read off the provisions of the settlement and one part of the settlement is prisoners will be returned by order of capture. while we were waiting, they said mccain, come in, we need to talk to you. and there was about eight vietnamese in this room. officers. and they had a tape recorder. and they said mccain, you're going to be leaving now. and we saved your life, as you know. don't you want to have a parting message of thanks for the doctors who took such good care of you? and i looked at them and i said, "you want me to thank the doctors?" they say yeah. "well, first of all, i'd like to say where the [ bleep ] have you been for the last five years? can i say that?"

going home was something that we looked forward to for so many years. i hate to tell you but it was almost anti-climactic. i'd been waiting so long for it. >> john sidney mccain. >> in some ways it was almost hard to believe we were going to do it. >> nobody cheered until the airplane actually lifted off the ground and the landing gear was retracted. >> i remember really clearly him stepping off that plane at clark air field and i'll tell you, when he appeared in that hatch way it was hard. >> lieutenant commander john s. mccain iii, united states navy. his wife carol, sons douglas and andrew and daughter sidney live in orange park, florida. >> i just remember he was really skinny. he was just kind of all bones in his face, and he was limping quite noticeably.

one of his arms he couldn't lift any higher than about this. but i just remember the smile was the same and the humor was the same, there was still a twinkle in his eye. it was like right out of the movies. >> i don't think i really understood what was going on. i was really like who is this guy? what is he doing here? did not understand the whole concept of his return from vietnam. >> john was not angry. he was just happy to be home. he told me every single thing that he could remember, and i wanted him to. i wanted him to just talk and talk and talk and not keep that stuff locked up. >> when we came home, i wanted to know what happened during all those years. think of yourself going 5 1/2 years with only information provided to you by your

communist captors. i wanted to know how the antiwar movement began. >> will the committee come to order? the committee continuing its hearings on proposals relating to the ending of the war in southeast asia. >> john and i were on different paths with respect to the war in vietnam. my war was down in the delta mostly, and seeing the war on a ground level led me to believe we were on a quixotic errand, and it weighed on me in a way that made me a very vocal and determined anti-war activist after i came back. >> each day to facilitate the process by which the united states washes her hands of vietnam someone has to give up his life, so that the united states doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we cannot

say that we've made a mistake. >> it didn't change my mind but what was very revealing was how mishandled the conflict was and how there was never a strategy for victory. >> someone has to die so that president nixon won't be, and these are his words, the first president to lose a war. >> the most offensive to me was that we didn't tell the american people the truth. the american people become disillusioned when they're being told that victory is just around the corner. >> and we will not be silent. >> which it was not. nice. good evening, sir. good evening. glengarry chamberlin, esquire. welcome. jimmy crabtree, plus one.

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any other american wouldn't do under the same circumstances, but as far as adjustments have been, all the studies indicate we've done very well. >> the period of adjustment was not as hard as you might think. i was able to go back to a squadron. i was the commanding officer of a squadron. which is what i wanted to do. >> it was important for him to fly again so he did aggressive physical therapy to get his body back in shape. then he went to be the liaison for the senate. and i think he got a real bug for politics there. >> i ended up in the united states senate in 1973. john came shortly thereafter as a navy liaison. when you travel abroad, you have a military escort with you, and every time i traveled i tried to make sure i had john and i think john did the same thing, and we traveled all over the world together.

>> i went everywhere. that's where i really became familiar with the senate and how it works. i learned one heck of a lot. >> as dad progressed, he was gone a lot. he was doing a lot of international travel and it was putting a little stress on the marriage. >> i talked to one shrink since i've come home. he asked me how my marriage was, and i told him it was fine. and then he told me about the fact that he was getting a divorce for half an hour. [ laughter ] >> i was a teacher of special education at the time in arizona and it was spring break and we were invited to a reception that was being held for a group of united states senators on their way through hawaii to china. he introduced himself to me and i just didn't know what to expect and what i saw was just this incredible human being that's a lot of fun to be around. >> this is about the time our

marriage was falling apart. he was looking for a way to be young again and that was the end of that. i didn't know anything about it. i had no idea what was going on. i was pretty much blindsided and it broke my heart. >> i think it was the last thing that she was expecting. we were all shocked and heartbroken. it caused quite a rift within the family. >> it left a bad taste in my mouth because i knew it wasn't what my mother wanted but by the same token, you know sometimes things are beyond your control. i think the divorce rates among the p.o.w.s were extraordinary high. so in hindsight, it's probably not unexpected. >> i really didn't think that he would propose. you know, he was older. i knew he cared very deeply for

me. i did know that. >> cindy, i think she was very young, too. and you can't help who you fall in love with. i truly believe that my dad is very much in love with cindy and i think she's very much in love with him and i think there is something really beautiful about that. at the time it was really awful. >> i got a telephone call from the navy. they wanted to know did i know where john was. and i said yes, i did know where he was. he was now remarried. i had the phone number and i called him and he knew by my voice something was wrong. he said what is it? i said, "your father died." >> we hadn't even been married a year.

no one ever wants this kind of insight into family but what i observed was a family of great strength, great honor, great dignity, the importance of legacy and tradition was never more apparent to me than that day. >> there's not an exaggeration when we say navy family. there's a lot to the navy family. my grandfather was commander of the carriers in the pacific during world war ii. the day of the peace signing my father and grandfather were together. my grandfather flew home the next day, had a heart attack and died. my father was a very dedicated naval officer. i never got as close to my father as perhaps i would have

under normal circumstances, but i was so proud of what he and my grandfather were doing. >> john had retired from the navy just during that week, and so finished the retirement process during the days of the funeral, and we left the next day to go home. that's a lot to absorb. >> i was unable to maintain flight status. that puts a ceiling. and i had to make a tough decision and i decided since i was not going to be able to reach all the heights that i wanted to that i would get out of the navy and that we would go to arizona. >> i felt he had some political ambitions, but we hadn't really outwardly said it, but i knew he was good at what he does, he was engaged in washington, he was a smart thinker.

>> i think if he had his choice he would have gone on and become an admiral and there would have been that symmetry with his father and grandfather. >> and whether he likes it or not, that would have been something, okay? but that wasn't possible. however, he was going to serve his country in some way. >> i'm announcing today my decision to become a candidate for the republican nomination. >> he was running for what had been john rhodes' seat and one of the first things i remember was a gentleman at a rotary club said you're not from arizona. what do you know about arizona? you're not a native arizonan. >> he threw a line on them in the first debate that ended the carpet bagger controversy. he said well, you know, sorry but the longest i've ever lived anywhere in my life is in hanoi. and that was the end of that discussion, frankly.

the idea was to get him in front of as many people as you could. so he every day was out knocking on doors, door to door to door to door to door. all summer long. he would just engage and talk with them. now, if someone was rude, john being john, you know, he'd walk and turn around and say thank you very much and turn around and go what an asshole, [ bleep ] that guy. that happened a hundred times. but that's john. if he would have had the energy of a regular candidate, then he would have lost. but we won, so that was awesome. but our goal from day one was for john to be in the senate, not to be in the house. >> it became known that barry goldwater was going to retire some two years, three years later and so right then i started positioning myself for running for barry's seat in the

senate. i didn't make a lot of bones about it. i was always looking the next step down the road. >> when he came to the senate, he was already a well-known commodity. he was already respected. i don't think john missed a beat coming over to the senate. >> when john was first elected and we started having children, it was a conscious decision by both of us to raise our children in arizona. >> hi, this is john. can i speak to deb? good. jimmy, let me see your phone. where did you get that phone, huh? how are you doing? the kids are getting ready to go for their swimming party today for the last day of school. one of those parties this year. >> we knew there would be a huge sacrifice, mainly for him because he's the one that had to commute. the way i portray it to the kids

as kind of a deployed manner. he's serving his country. he's away, he has to be away but you know you'll see him on the weekends. with that said, he never missed a weekend. >> yes, it's the first time i had done that, and i -- i promise you the cat will come out if you leave her alone. >> i know that people think it's an unorthodox way to grow up having your parents divided but they made such an attempt to make sure we had family time and travel together that it just -- when it's your normal you don't think of anything different. >> okay. see you later. all right, hon. >> when my dad was in d.c., it was mostly my mom. she has a very kind demeanor generally, but when the mom needs to come out, she will. but depending on how much we had misbehaved, it was always the

threat of you want me to call your father? he has the ability to outargue or outthink any member of our family, which is very frustrating when you're young. >> this man is a united states senator, and you are about to hear him say something that very few senators have ever said before. >> it was a very serious mistake on my part. >> john mccain is talking about the role he played in charles keating's attempt in 1987 to secure senatorial protection against the federal government taking over his lincoln savings & loan. >> charles keating was a very big builder. he was probably at that time the biggest in arizona. he also was very patriotic and he took a liking to me and he helped me with my campaigns. >> he was a big arizona player. he would support candidates and get behind candidates and raise a lot of money. then he bought some savings and loans and that's where it all

kind of went south on him. >> examiners from the federal home loan bank found what they described as a ticking time bomb. the examiners also uncovered evidence of improper bookkeeping and possible fraud. then the federal examiners were summoned for an extraordinary meeting with five united states senators. each senator had gotten large campaign donations from keating, his family, and their associates. >> in the most explosive testimony yet, edwin gray, the former chief regulator of the savings and loan industry told banking committee chairman henry gonzalez that four u.s. senators asked him to ease regulatory pressure on troubled lincoln savings & loan. >> john still tells me when he walked in the door of that meeting that had been arranged for this he knew that this was going to be a problem. >> i'm doing everything i can to try and set the record straight. again, admitting that i made mistakes and serious ones. but i did not abuse my office. and i think that's the key to this issue here. >> you told me this was the

political crisis of your life. >> absolutely. >> tell me why it is. >> because my reputation is at stake here. i've never had my ethics or my standards of conduct questioned. >> you think you'll survive it? >> i hope so. >> hearings begin this week into what has already been called a major congressional scandal. >> never before have five senators been accused of intervening with federal regulators to help a campaign contributor. >> this case raises troubling questions about money, power and political influence in washington. >> thank you, mr. chairman. once again i'm glad to have the opportunity to fully and publicly account for my relationship with charles keating. >> the hearings took place day in and day out. and watching my husband being dressed down by people in my opinion that couldn't hold a candle to him killed me. i mean, it broke my heart.

>> mr. mccain and his family took several flights on acc corporate aircraft and charted aircraft. two, prompt reimbursement was made for only one flight. >> he's his own worst critic. he holds himself to a higher standard. he really does. he tries his hardest to be the best and do the most honorable thing and that was just a -- it was a mess. >> to me, that statement does not show evidence of intent to reimburse for family members. once again, i have nothing to gain personally -- >> it was not a good time for any of us. i became ill. i was medicating myself. i mean, it was all -- it did a number on both of us. >> let's talk a little bit about -- >> the proper time we take a recess. >> yes. >> john would come over to my office in the keating five and we'd sit and talk. and i'd say john, look, you've just got to -- everybody's going

to understand. just tough it out here. tough it out. but it killed john. >> first and foremost, it was a matter of honor. the second thing it challenged was his restlessness and his impatience. it just dragged on. he needed to get to a place where he could put it in his rearview mirror like he put every bad thing. >> the committee concludes senator mccain exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators. senator mccain violated no law of the united states or specific rule of the united states senate. therefore, the committee concludes no further action is warranted with respect to senator mccain on the matters investigated during the inquiry. >> i was found guilty of bad judgment. that will always be a black mark on my record, even if it was only using, quote, bad judgment. it was wrong. >> until we abolish soft money,

americans will never have a government that works as hard for them as it does for special interests. that is a sad but undeniable fact of contemporary politics. >> i think campaign finance reform was a result of what happened. he saw a system that was really corrupt and really needed to be reformed. >> the process must begin. campaign finance reform has contributed to the level of cynicism that is prevalent in the american citizens today. >> he stepped out, he stepped away from most members of his party. he formed a bipartisan coalition with russ feingold and others. and he fought like hell for it. >> i think we're doing the right thing by trying to do this on a bipartisan basis because i think it's the only way that campaign finance reform can occur. >> the basic john mccain public image is the tough guy, the

maverick, the fighter, if necessary in your face, maybe occasionally showing temper. but visions of him as the stubborn, immovable mccain don't allow for the reality that he's had a very productive career as a u.s. senator because he's not been stubborn and immovable. >> teddy loved working with john mccain. he said they can go at it and come back and be friends and i think that was the essence of being able to do a deal. i think that's why they worked so well together. they were all moving towards something that was good for the country and they might have a different way of getting there but if they talked it out and worked it out, they could find that common ground to move things forward. >> around the mid '90s john and i used to sit on the floor together when there's a debate. i would sit next to john at the

desk and he'd come over and sit and some senators said why are you sitting with mccain? i said he's my friend. "well, it doesn't look good." i mean, my god. >> he was always open to doing something people didn't expect him to do like support campaign finance reform. and mccain i think both for noble motives and out of practical experience was always willing to break the mold he was in if it was clearly the right thing to do. and that's an invaluable commodity. >> campaign finance reform made him very unpopular in the conservative movement. but i really don't think he cared. he was driven by a sense that something dishonorable was going on. he was really a missile that aimed itself at anything dishonorable and wherever he saw a stain, he was driven to go

after it. >> within 60 days all americans held prisoners of war will be released. there will be the fullest possible accounting for all of those who are missing in action. i would like to say a word to the families of our prisoner of war missing in action. nothing means more to me at this moment than the fact that your long vigile isvigil is here. >> the pow mia still haunts america. the task of this committee is clear. it is to prove to all concerned that we will leave no stone unturned, no ask unasked, no effort unexplored to try to resolve this issue. >> john kerry and i were in strong disagreement concerning his activities against the war, but i also respect the fact that john kerry served.

>> john, in his spirit of trying to reach out and put history in its proper place, became friendly with a lot of people who had opposed the war and we began a conversation, which ultimately led the two of us to the same conclusion, which was the war still raged in too many hearts in our country, we were not at peace with ourselves and both of us saw a strategic value in trying to move to a different place with respect to the relationship with vietnam. >> we agreed to work to get a full accounting of those who were missing in action and normalize relations between our two countries. >> there are too many families who, for whatever reasons, are not getting the answers that they deserve to have, not being treated the way that they deserve to be treated and that has to change. >> john and i understood that whatever strategic interests we might have had in moving to a

different relationship with vietnam would never be possible unless those questions were put to rest. >> tonight the u.s. government has new information from vietnam that could help determine what became of many of these americans. >> the promise to come clean was made over the weekend in hanoi to senator john mccain. mccain carried an inventory of documents and photos hidden away from the vietnamese archives. >> they provided us with a lot of photographs. they were kind enough to give me several that i had not seen before, which i'd like to show you. i'm much better looking in those days than i am today. and i want to stress what the general said again. this is a beginning, a beginning. >> there was this theory that the vietnamese were holding thousands of americans still

prisoner, which became intellectually understood, informed by experience, was fairly implausible. >> may i say, mr. chairman, that the remarks are far stronger than what she just alleged. the recent photograph fiasco is yet another example of committee did y duplicity. i'd like you to tell that to some of the families. >> i've been speaking to them, sir. >> i've been talking to them and they are grateful and happy and this is a significant breakthrough. now, when you call it -- >> what we did was put together the single most exhaustive, most transparent accounting for missing in war ever performed by any country in the world. >> is there any evidence that there are any more alive

missing? >> there's still no evidence that would prove that there's americans alive and we are getting down to not a whole lot of cases and they're still unresolved and we're continuing to get kroopcorporation from th vietnamese and the senator and i are going to meet next week and he'll have to make up his mind from there. >> senator, senator, come over and talk to us. >> in the last meeting with the normalization of relations with vietnam, they still hadn't convinced clinton to do it. kerry made the informed, logical compelling case for it and then clinton turned to mccain and i'll always remember it, he said, mr. president, i'm tired of looking back at vietnam and i'm tired of my country looking back. it's time to move forward. and if you normalize relations, i will defend you every step of

the way. >> today i am announcing the normalization of diplomatic relationships with vietnam. [ clapping ] >> i realize because i hadn't served in the military and because i had openly opposed the vietnam war, i had to have the support of american veterans. if mccain hadn't been there and been willing to step up, i don't think any of it would have happened. >> let this moment be a time heal and a time to build. thank you all and god bless america. [ clapping ] . ufacturing business. & so this won't happen. because you've made sure this sensor and this machine are integrated.

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i'm going to run for president and i'm going to give you the heads up and i was like great. inside i was like oh no. i was very happy for him. i think you could kind of see it coming that that was gonna be his calling. >> america doesn't owe me anything. i am the son and grandsons of navy admirals and i was born into america's service. it wasn't until i was deprived of her company that i fell in love with america and it has been my honor to serve her and her great cause, freedom. it is because i owe america more than she has ever owed me that i am a candidate for president of the united states. >> in the run up to the 2000 campaign there were lots of candidates and one person has stood over the top of that entire field was george w. bush.

>> we started out a decided underdog. we thought that the best way to campaign was to have total access to the media. that's what the straight talk express was all about. >> he wanted to do politics a different way. we had modelled the campaign on being completely transparent and every day 18 hours a day john mccain would be surrounded by the press core that was covering him in the back of that bus holding forth on every issue that was on the table. >> i'm against gun registration and so -- >> why? >> because i don't think it's necessary in america, but obviously, as i said before, we would be glad to examine proposals. >> the bus was this free-wheeling exercise in public discourse. >> let's do a lightening round. >> okay. >> your favorite book? >> for whom the bell tolls.

>> favorite movie. >> he was a pilot. >> how do you reconcile the fact that you were one of the most vocal critics of politics and yet while you were chairman of the congress committee, that committee set a record for unauthorized appropriations? i was just kidding. no, i don't even know what that means. >> the 2000 presidential campaign was the most fun i've ever had as a political journalist. everything was transparent so we got to see absolutely everything. >> what plan number is 27? >> the way to get mccain talking was to find somebody he didn't like and just remind him of it. so you get there at 6:00 in the morning and say did you see what rick santorum said and he would say [ bleep ] and his mouth

would just go and talk and talk and talk and who he liked and who he didn't like and it was great. >> yes, he says the odds are lo long, but to someone who survived years in torture in solitary confinement nothing seems impossible. >> some people ask why i am running for president of the united states and my wife says it's because i received several sharp blows in prison. >> the arizona senator returned from captivity in vietnam says he is unstable, but friend john kerry says he's heard the whispers. >> it was important to stand up for the truth, for the reality of what was being done here. >> i picked up the phone and called him and said, john, where do you want me? i will testify to your character before anyone in the country. you just tell me. and he started laughing and he

said you'd hurt me more than you would help by testifying. >> i am a perfectionist and i want people around me to be that way and when they're not i get angry about it. why would you say something that stupid? why would you ask something that dumb? >> i remember going into his office and walking in and he was screaming at someone and i was like oh my god, dad talks like that. >> he could be an asshole one minute and your friend the next but you know he loves you. >> mccain thinks his release of medical records will put to rest that years in a prisoner camp have made him unstable. >> i would have a man of temper than a wuss in office. >> i was kind of the presumptive heir to the nomination. i never ran scared i was gonna

lose, but i knew john would be a tough competitor. >> nobody was supposed to beat george w. bush, but if you could beat him in a primary, it could create enormous momentum. the idea was to win in new hampshire and start the campaign basically from there. >> we had these town halls anywhere where he took any questions and they let him go for as long as people wanted to ask questions. >> i will be doing as we have been doing all over the state of new hampshire and that is to respond to your questions, comments whenever. >> new hampshire wants to see two or three times. they want to touch you and ask you questions and john is really good at that and he likes it. he loves it. >> i'd like to introduce our four children, megan, jack,

brittany. >> as a freshman in high school i remember that he was super famous. >> we're getting a lot of coverage and that was drawing crowds to the town halls and they were getting bigger and spilling into the streets and you could sense something was happening. >> the last event we did was in bedford, new hampshire and i went upstairs to give him the exit polls and he was in the bedroom rehearsing his speech. i said we got the exit polls and he said what are they? i said you're gonna win. he said how much? i said you're gonna clobber. that has implications. i said, yeah, like you could be president. it has that implication. >> i remember just that hotel

going crazy, just people everywhere crying and screaming and this elation and he whooped george bush's ass. >> in the weeks and months ahead i may say things you want to hear and i may say things you don't want to hear, but you will always -- you will always hear the truth from me no matter what. >> first of all, i was surprised. i thought i was gonna whip him. of course, he thought he was gonna whip me. it was a turning point for me because he outworked me and he had a better message for new hampshire and so i told my team, look, let's view this as a blessing not a defeat. for that i'm thankful because i needed to show people i could get off the mat. >> i will be glad to examine that proposal, but i also -- >> everybody knew in the bush campaign and the mccain campaign

that whoever came out of south carolina was likely to be the nominee of the party. >> i'm glad to be back down here. i want you to know loud and clear we're going into battle. >> new hampshire's campaign was basically void of a lot of negative campaigning. by the time we got to south carolina, it was bare knuckle politics. >> this is george bush's ad promising america he would run a positive campaign. >> we were running negative ads. >> governor bush's tax plan isn't true and mccain knows it. >> it was the fight of the century. >> the war is heating up further as they battle for votes in south carolina mccain is accusing the bush campaign of making misleading phone calls to voters. >> governor bush denies anyone in his campaign are making negative phone calls, but mccain supporters are pointing to a phone call on saturday between bush and a supporter in south

carolina. they came it shows the governor promised more negative attacks on mccain. >> you haven't hit any soft spots. >> the phone calls went out all over south carolina do you know the mccains have a black baby. >> john and cindy had adopted from one of mother theresa's orphanages a baby daughter, a person of color, and people were getting calls saying that she was his illegitimate daughter from a relationship with an african-american prostitute. >> i just remember getting really dark really fast. it was like the last time i was truly innocent in politics was before that happened. >> in south carolina proof that negative campaigning works. mccain supporters dropped ten points in less than two weeks. the mccains had a meeting on thursday and it was described

how her son idolized mccain before he received a phone call. >> he said mom someone told me that senator mccain is a cheat and a liar and a fraud. and he was almost in tears. >> are you saying that governor bush was responsible for that call? >> i don't know who was responsible for it, but i know the attacks go on. >> he accused me of dirty campaigning and i pulled out a flyer saying paid for by mccain. >> this is an attack piece. >> it is not by my campaign. >> it says your campaign. >> it is not my campaign. >> it was getting bad and he says, look, i want to take off all the negative campaign ads. i want to go positive. i said, well, what do you mean? take off negative campaign ads. we're in a slugfest of our

lives. he said i want to run a campaign that my daughter will be proud of. i would rather lose an honorable campaign than win a dishonorable win. >> governor bush and mccain are running neck and neck. the c both campaigns have staked out a position of calculated ambiguity. >> when you roll into a state like south carolina, you're gonna get asked every single day by state reporters who do you think about the issue of taking down the confederate flag. so we worked out some wording and we said, well, it's a state issue. it's not what we want to get into. it was a symbol of heritage. when we sat down and talked to john mccain about it, he was like that's bullshit.

he was angry about it. >> can you clarify your position on the confederate flag? >> i've already done it. >> can i tell you what that is? >> i'll give you the piece of paper. i understand both sides. some view of it as a symbol of sl slavery and some view it as a symbol of heritage. >> it was a few instance where we didn't follow our instincts. the only bad period in the campaign was when we did something out of political expedientsy rather than telling the truth and we lost. >> today mccain chose a dramatic setting to halt his campaign. >> i am no longer an active candidate for president of the united states. >> he will go back to the senate, but he vows his crusade

will go on. >> i would say he's one of the few politicians i've ever covered that whose has an authentic inner voice. even when he does things that are not great, embracing the confederate flag in south carolina, he knows he's not doing something great. most politicianss rationalize i to themselves. mccain has never been able to lie to himself very well. even when he knows he's compromising for political reasons, he knows he's compromising and there's some piece of himself that feels pretty bad about it. >> i promised to tell the truth always about my intentions and my believes. i fell short of that standard in south carolina and i want to tell the people of south carolina and all americans that

i sincerely regret breaking my promise to always tell you the truth. i was asked during the course of my campaign how i personally felt about the confederate battle flag that flies above your state capital. i answered that it was an issue that the people of south carolina could decide for themselves. i did not answer the question i was asked how did i personally feel about the flag. my ancestors fought for the confederacy and i am sure that they fought with courage and faith, but i don't believe their service however distinguished needs to be coshown in a way th hurts people whose ancestors were once denied freedom by my ancestors. that, my friends, is how i personally feel about the con

federal battle flag. i should have done this earlier. i did not do so for one reason alone. i feared if i answered honestly i could not win the south carolina primary so i chose to compromise my principals. i broke my promise to always tell the truth. i'm not so naive to believe that politics must never involve compromise, but i was raised to know i should never sacrifice a principal for personal ambition. >> he grew up with a moral code and it was a code that preached honor and glory, sacrifice for country. we all have the one virtue we aspire to most. for mccain it's courage and courage comes in many forms, the kind he displayed in vietnam, but also personal courage and courage in politics. [ clapping ]

>> even though we lost in 2000, he was able to go back to the united states senate a much more powerful individual than when he started that campaign. >> the best cure for losing is get to work. get busy. that's the only way to get over this. >> we had some fun. how are you doing? so i redoubled my efforts and my energies. >> the battle over campaign refinance form is poised to play out over the senate floor this week, but it's also shaping up to be a fight between george bush and mccain. >> chances are better than before. >> every special interest in this town that uses money in order to buy access and influence is appropletic.

>> a major victory for john mccain to clean up campaign financing. >> on this vote the yaes are 59 and nays are 51 and the bill has passed. >> when you work on the senate staff and you have a big accomplishment or something, the next day it's done. wh else? what else is what he's always saying. what else? tell me something else. he's wired differently from other people that way. >> he is the motion machine and traveling with him requires you to keep up with him. when he said i want to go and study climate change, i want to see for myself what i'm reading about, i jumped on board. and when we were on these trips together, he really zeroed in, how did this happen? tell me a specific story. what did that mean to you? and he listened to people. >> you read in the people 500 protesters killed in blank

stand. john says let's go. john spoke up on their behalf and thank god we got out of there. >> he believes that human rights are the birthright of all and we ought to speak up for people being deprived. >> i have a daughter in the peace corp. they said john mccain will try to help us. he's just some random guy -- some random guy in a third world country knows who he is. he knows he'll fight for him. mih your family unlimited plans like you mix and match your flavors. so you get what you want, without paying for things you don't. number 6. i know. where do i put it? in my belly. (vo) one family. different unlimited plans. starting at $40 per line on the network you deserve.

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okay, guys. >> u.s. senator john mccain has returned to the infamous prison known as the hanoi hilton. >> there was a light bulb that hang down. >> mccain was accompanied by his son jack. >> it hasn't upset me because my dad's never said anything negative towards this thing. it's just where he was kept.

i don't think so. he's a lot stronger of a person. >> that's good. >> if you ask him about his experiences, he will tell you, but it's a short, frank, what was it like? it wasn't great. what did they feed you? they fed me cabbage soup. >> it's nice to be back. i've been here on many occasions and it's always nice to check on the condition of my statute. it's the only one i've got. >> it was important for john to show jack what had happened because there's several lessons in that, not just what happened to him, but what happened as a result of this occasionally mismanaged war. >> not everything i base my views on is about vietnam, but one heck of a lot of it is. the experience of vietnam, i

always have a template which to judge whether we have a strategy for success. >> slow down! >> in both iraq and afghanistan, the strategy was don't lose. if the strategy is don't lose, then you don't win. >> he is a passionate believer in an exceptional america that embodies its ideas, protects them at home and advances them abroad. that he faces the greatest cause anyone can serve. >> american leadership in the world, john, i think recognizes is not just a matter of us having the biggest air force or the mightiest ships or the latest weaponry. it has to do with people thinking we're more likely than not to do the right thing. >> this is a picture of an iraqi

prisoner of war and according to the u.s. army americans did this to him. the army confiscated some 60 pictures of iraqi prisoners being mistreated. >> i'm gravely concerned that many americans will have the same impulse that i did when i saw this picture and that is to turn away from them and we risk losing public support for this conflict as americans turned away from the vietnam war, they may turn away from this one unless this issue is quickly resolved with full disclosure so that we can be assured and comforted that something that we never believed could happen will never happen again. >> the bush administration's judgment about what constituted appropriate treatment of a prisoner of war drove john over the edge. >> what were the instructions to the guards? that is what the investigation

that i've indicated has been undertaken, which is determining -- >> that's a very simple straightforward question. >> well, the -- as chief of staff of the army can tell you, the guards are -- >> the thing that john understands better than anyone else, it's not only wrong, it also is damaging. it goes to the essence of what it is to be an american. we are a product of our values. >> he was just beside himself with anger and frustration and with the excuses being given by military and civilian leaders, he wants names and he wants people to be held accountable because he wants to send a signal this is not only unacceptable for what happened in iraq, this is always unacceptable. and he was not shy about linking that kind of outrageous

dehumanizing behavior with the collapse of american values. >> my friends, we face formable challenges. i'm not afraid of them. i'm prepared for them. i'm not the youngest candidate, but i am the most experienced. [ clapping ] >> i know how to fight and i know how to make peace. i know who i am and what i want to do. >> he was, i think, legitimately the right man at the right time to lead a nation in a post 9/11 environment. 9/11 had a profound impact not only on the country and the security and the subsequent wars in afghanistan and iraq, but also on america. that was a wonderful opportunity for senator mccain, who had always been steeped in national security foreign policy and i think the early polling demonstrated that. he was significantly in the lead

and, of course, at this time it was john mccain and hillary clinton. that was the narrative of the 2008 campaign. little did we know that narrative would be turned upside down. >> i think john had great appeal among independents. john obviously had the extraordinary biography. >> because you decided that change must come to washington, because you believe that this year must be different than all the rest, because -- >> but we weren't really running against john mccain. we were running for a new direction for the country. >> it's been my honor to welcome my friend, john mccain, as the

nominee of the republican party. i wish you all the best. i'm glad to be your friend. >> john mccain's running for president, the iraq war is about as popular as a toothache and john said we have to win and he stood behind president bush adding more troops at a time when everybody wanted to get out. >> if the 2000 campaign was known as freewheeling, easy access to the media, the 2008 campaign was completely the opposite. >> okay, guys. we're having fun now. >> i wanted to bring the media back on the bus. i wanted them to be there and have the same dialogue we had before, but they get on the bus and then it would be a challenge as to who can ask the worst gotcha question. i remember i got on the bus one time and one question was what do you think about the economy?

i said i'm working hard on the economy because that hasn't always been my top priority. the next day in "the new york times" mccain said he's not familiar with the economy. you know it. i don't know why you ask. >> i asked because -- >> you do know. you do know. >> i just read in the times -- >> i don't know what you read or heard of and i don't know the circumstances. >> we're trying to tell the truth as we see it and it's never the truth as the campaign sees it and i think it's always going to be annoying and if you react with hospittility you makt worse. >> it's well known i had the conversation. do you have a question on another issue? >> i think in 2008 the environment was much more toxic than it was in 2000. >> we were out there doing everything we could to sort of show, hey, this is a different

kind of republican, but it was a change election. the country is deeply unhappy and barack obama was the biggest change on the face of it. >> i have known and been friends with john mccain for almost 22 years. to those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, i say let's compare senator mccain to candidate mccain. candidate mccain says he would vote against the immigration bill that senator mccain wrote. are you kidding me, folks? the stakes could not be higher because we do know what a bush -- what a mccain administration would look like. there's a slip. >> george bush was the single

least popular sitting president in history. his approval rating was 25%. and we were the third term of the bush administration. >> just this morning senator mccain said that actually he and president bush share a common philosophy. that's right, colorado, i guess that was john mccain finally giving us a little straight talk. >> senator obama wants to run against george bush. he should have run for president four years ago. >> one of the things that was the key to us was to be able to regain the mantle of the maverick. and one of the most critical decisions that john mccain had to make was who was going to be his running mate and we had a lot of good options, at least we thought we did. >> when rick davis called me and said john wanted to put me on the short list for vp, honestly

my reaction was are you kidding? i think john felt it would be a big message in this, which is this was gonna be a bipartisan ticket, unprecedented. >> you may ask who are you supporting for a republican for president? >> john wanted to pick joe lieberman. you're just sitting around the abstract. that's sort of interesting. but i said, okay, here's like time-out. time-out. has anyone in this room actually read the republican national convention rules? we're gonna have a bloodbath on the convention floor just to nominate him. >> he was unhappy with that point of view and resisted it and argued against it and kept maintaining it, but, hey, you can't start off the general campaign with a convention that rejects your vice presidential

choice. how are you going to win in november? >> i should have said joe lieberman is my best friend and we should take him, but i was persuaded by my political advisors that would be harmful and that was another mistake that i made. >> my friends and fellow americans, i am very pleased, very privileged to introduce to you the next vice president of the united states, governor sarah palin of the great state of alaska. >> she was not chosen because of her position on any particular issue. she had gotten into politics as a reformer. >> it was rightly noted in denver this week that hillary

left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in america, but it turns out the women of america aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all. >> i understand the choice. it was a gamble and my dad is a gambler and he always rolls the dice. they understood they had to fight change with change. >> that friday we had erased a 20 point margin and for two weeks we had a campaign that was winning the presidential election. >> our opponent is someone who sees america as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country. >> politics is about serving and you can't serve if you don't win. he was behind. it was a long shot so he could justify the pick by saying i had

the hail mary pass, i had to try something. i don't think he could have known this at the time, but in picking sarah palin he basically took a disease that was running through the republican party, not palin herself, she's a normal human being, but a disease that i'll call do disrespect for facts and he put it at the center of the party. she was a chapter in the rise of a cheap popularism. >> i can't trust obama. i have read about him and he's not -- he's not -- he's a -- he's an arab. he is not -- >> no, ma'am. >> no? >> no, ma'am. no, ma'am. he's a -- 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.

thank you. >> in the environment in which he already had an uphill battle where the energy of the party was being captured by his vice presidential nominee, sarah palin, and it was a much more red meat pangry tone, for john o stay hold on a second, we don't demonize each other, we're all americans, we're all on the same team, i thought was an indication much who john fundamentally was. >> first of all, i want to be president of the united states and obviously i do not want senator obama to be, but i have tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the united states. now, i just -- i just -- now, look. i -- i -- if i didn't think i would be one heck of a lot

better president i wouldn't be running, okay, and that's the point. that's the point. >> on september 16th, the entire campaign changed. that was the day the economy collapsed. people were being thrown out of their jobs. we were going through a global upheaval and we were running a presidential campaign right in the middle of it. >> it was a terrible, toxic environment for anybody that had an "r" next to their name. >> john was carrying an 800 pound rock up a hill. talk about good year, bad year. it was a bad year. >> my friends, we have -- we have come to the end of a long journey. the american people have spoken and they have spoken clearly. a little while ago i had the honor of calling senator barack obama to congratulate him -- >> boo. >> please -- to congratulate him on being elected the next

president of the country that we both love. >> he could not have been more gracious. he could not have been more generous about wishing my administration well. >> it's natural tonight to feel some disappointment, but tomorrow we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again. >> it was gracious. it was futurisfuturistic. it was about the country. he was saying, come on, now. come on. help this man. i'm gonna help him. i'm here. i'm here. >> and i call on all americans, as i have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe always in the promise and greatness of america because nothing is inevitable here. americans never quit. we never surrender. we never hide from history.

we make history. thank you and god bless you and god bless america. thank you all very much. >> my dad's calling is to make america a better place. my father is very conservative. i am not. i'm very liberal, but we still manage to meet on some issues that are important to both of us. his heart is to make a better country. his heart is what he believes in. he's not doing this to be self serving. he's doing it because he's a true believer that the country needs him. >> a lot of people tried to get me to say bad things about him during that time and i was like are you crazy? i would never do that. you don't know me or you wouldn't ask me. i mean, i love the man. i would never do anything to harm him in any way. i'm very sad that he's gonna be leaving us in the next year. it's heart breaking. it's not fair. so your familyt they love in more places.

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the office of senator john

mccain has announced tonight that the arizona senator has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. >> the 80-year-old republican from arizona has the same type of cancer that took the life of senator ted kennedy. >> survival is somewhere between 14 and 15 months. that said people with a fighting attitude such as senator mccain tend to do better. >> i suspected something because there were just little things that were telling me something wasn't right with him. >> well, at least in the minds of this member, there's a whole lot of questions remaining. >> he was complaining of being very tired and he had gotten wrapped around the axle of the fbi direct or comey hearing. >> you're gonna have to help me out here. anything that former secretary

clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore. >> i'm a little confused senator. with respect to secretary clinton. >> yeah. >> we investigated -- >> he had a physical coming up and we made sure that the schedule was such that it couldn't be pushed. we thought it needs to be looked at. >> i'm in the middle of lunch and i get a call from senator mccain. he was in the car driving to sedona and in a very nonchalant way he said i had my check up today and he said they just called me to tell me to turn my car around to come back. >> 80-year-old senator john mccain is resting comfortably at home after surgeons removed a blood clot above his eye yesterday at the hospital. now senator majority leader says the senate will defer a vote on

the health care bill until senator mccain returns. >> he walked out of the hospital the day after brain surgery, but he felt fine. now, did he feel fine or did he convince you that he felt fine? here's a guy that's gone through enormous physical challenges early in his life. his knees were all busted out, but he out walks everybody that tries to do a campaign walk with him. he can't wocomb his hair, but h looks just fine. >> he called me. he said i want to give this speech about the health care vote that's coming up. i said okay. have they got the results back? >> he goes, yeah, it's not great. >> the measure of the man is how he responds under significant

adversity and look at john. look at him. i mean, he's -- he's a good frie friend. [ clapping ] >> he said i have to go back to the health care bill and i said what could possibly happen if he gets on a plane? the doctor said that he could hemorrhage and it can be dangerous if he still has air in his brain and all this crazy stuff. so i freaked out and i screamed at everyone that he couldn't get on the plane and that i didn't agree with it and my dad snapped at me and said it's my life and it's my choice. >> i stand here today looking a

little worse for wear i'm sure. i've been a member of the united states senate for 30 years. my service here is the most important job i've had in my life. >> his public service has been so deeply entwined with friendships and a lot of friendships have been with democrats, ted kennedy, joe bidden, and so out of that sense of friendship came the belief that party is not everything and out of that came direct experience with crafting compromised legislation. >> let's trust each other. let's return to regular order. we've been spinning our wheels on to many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. that's an approach that's been employed by both sides mandating legislation from the top down without any support from the other side with all the maneuvers that requires. we're getting nothing done, my friends. we're getting nothing done.

>> he decries the partisanship, the refusal to work together and get something done for the people that were good enough to send members of congress to congress. >> we tried to do this by coming up with a proposal behind closed doors in consultation with the administration and springing it on skeptical members, trying to convince them that it's better than nothing. that it's better than nothing? >> i think the vast majority of republicans and democrats know better. they have to start to stand up and john would say get back to regular order. >> all regular order means is you introduce a bill, you have hearings, you let the public see what's going on, you show the press, you have witnesses and amendments and you make up your mind. that's how democracy is supposed to work. >> i will not vote for this bill as it is today.

>> i think the republicans felt that he had marshalled all his physical strength to come back after the surgery and that naturally he would vote with the republican party, but they totally misread john. he came back for a different reason. he came back to do the right thing and to send a message to his colleagues and to the country. >> i'll be here for a few days. after that i'm going home for a while to treat my illness. i have every intention of returning here and giving many of you cause to regret all the nice things you said about me. and i hope to impress on you again that is an honor to serve the american people in your company. thank you, fellow senators. mr. president, i yield.

[ clapping ] >> it's hard not to be proud of john mccain, right? he takes chances that nobody else takes, both with his health, you know to get on a plane and go to washington to have an impact. he takes chances with his message. you know, to tell people probably what they need to hear, but don't ever want to hear and he does it all because of his desire to have an impact for the positive. it's hard not to be respectful of that guy. >> i saw things that i didn't agree with that i thought was

wrong. the american people don't hold washington and the people that work there in very high esteem. we need to make sure that we give the american people what they deserve and right now they're not getting it. i know that this was a very vicious disease. i greet every day with gratitude and i will continue to do everything that i can, but i'm also very aware that none of us live forever. i'm confident and i'm happy and i'm very grateful for the life i've been able to lead and i greet the future with joy.

my grandfather loved his life and he loved the fact that he had to leave, my father the same way. i am the same way. i love life and i want to stay around forever, but i also believe that there's a great honor that you can die with. by the way, i read hemingway and robert jordan is still my hero and his last thoughts were it's still a great life and well worth fighting for. >> a hero is somebody who -- who does the right thing no matter what and i think john throughout his life has been heroic so many

times. so we shouldn't be surprised that as he faces this at the end of his life that he's still heroic and that if he showed us how to live, he's also showing us how to die. >> i've had the good fortune to spend 60 years in service to land. it's not been perfect service to be sure and there were probably times when the country might have benefitted with a little less of my help, but i have tried to serve the best i can and i have been repaid a thousand times over with adventures and good company and the satisfaction of serving

something more important than myself, of being a player in the extraordinary story of america and i am so grateful. to fear the world we have organized and led for three quarters of a century, to abandon the ideas we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half baked nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems. [ clapping ] is as unpatriotic in the past that americans can assign to the ash heap of history.

for all its suffering and danger, the world still looks to the example and leadership of america to become another better place. what greater cause could anyone ever serve? [ bells tolling ] ♪

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>> not if there was a funny idea. >> what is wrong with you? >> there's so much different storytelling and so many different stories being told about so many different people. >> i don't think dramatic series television has ever been stronger. >> there's no longer this theory of what popular entertainment must be. >> incoming! >> who are the heroes? the people who watch this show. ♪