The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 352 - John "The Maverick" McCain

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine war hero and Senator John McCain.SOURCESTOUR DATES OFFICIAL MERCH

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American History podcast each week. I, man with hair, man with eyes, man with one foot. Dave Anthony, read the story from American History. To his friend. To his friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. August 29th, 1963. BAM BAM BAM BAM. Year of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the right room with black curtains. I'm gonna sort of forest-gump the scene for the audience. Sure. John Sidney McCain the third. Oh, sweet bastard. Was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone. He was born on a military base. Yeah. So he was, this was his destiny. Oh, fuck yeah. He was the middle of three kids. John's family. I'm

a little worried about this already. You should be. Yeah, because I... You enjoy the man. I, yeah, I like the man. Okay, well good luck with that. Oh boy. John's family had been in the military since forever. His ancestors served in every U.S. war from the Revolution to World War II. Wow. His grandfather's uncle created the modern military draft. His grandfather and admiral commanded all naval war power during World War II. Okay. So of course his father was in the military. Sure. John admired his father but they weren't close. Jack was an alcoholic. Although John was convinced his father never told a lie. Okay. Yeah,

most alcoholics stick to the truth. That's right. For the most part. It's a classic. I was cheating on you, okay? I'm sorry, Becky. I gotta shoot the train. John's mom came from a millionaire wild catting oil family. Wild catting? Yeah, we do this. We do an episode about wild cats. So... A wild catting. Right, okay. Jack also made admiral. I'm doing heavy catting. Yeah. Okay, so I don't know how to respond to that one. Oh, nobody does. So his dad makes admiral. So they're the first father-son admiral team to be. Oh yeah. That's right. As a kid, John had a bit of an anger issue. Okay. Starting very young when he was two. He would become

so angry he would hold his breath until he passed out. Oh well that's just that's just kids being kids, Dave. That's normal. Yeah, that's what you do. Very... Imagine trying to... You go against human instincts. It's important to... This is land drowning is what this is. That's right. Yeah. His parents would then dunk him in ice water. So his parents would waterboard him to get him breathing again? Yeah, they thought the best way... We also invented waterboarding. Well, if your kid's angry, the best way to deal with it is to treat him like a terrorist or a spot. No, absolutely. The first thing you do is put the kid on ice. Yeah. Put him in

a champagne bucket. At 12, his family settled in Arlington, Virginia. Okay. Which for people who don't know is right outside of DC. Right. Jack was the Navy's liaison officer to Congress. They entertained political and military figures. So his job is to whine and die in Congress for the Navy. Okay, right. Being a Navy kid, John went to a lot of schools. At each school, he'd fight the first kid to provoke him. Did he think it was jail? Yes. He's like, what you do in school? Do you find the biggest kid and you beat the snot out of him? You got to be the craziest guy in school. Yeah. That's how school works. Hey, wait, we haven't sworn

yet. We could make this a no swearing up because that's these teachers when we were on tour. I don't know if this is the one they want. Okay. Well, then fuck that. Let's keep going. So, right. So quote, to impress upon my classmates that I was not a person to suffer slights like. Wow. So he really was taking the prison mentality. Yes. And just finding the guy and just beating him up. 100%. Okay. He literally walked into every school and was like, I'm the not fuck with you guy. Yeah. And then held his breath. They were like, just beat up the kid. He's passing out. Put him in ice. Oh, they got sweet ice. Get ice. Oh, sweet ice. Oh, the warming embrace of ice my

father would never give me. He got the nickname McNasty. Whoa. See, so far, I'm loving everything I'm here. He went to elite all boys schools, all white prep schools. He was often disciplined for fighting. Hey, listen, you're in the realm of McNasty. Yeah. Yeah. Deal with it. After high school, John went to the US Naval Academy. His first trip at sea was to Rio. Okay. The captain had been a student of his father. Okay. So while his classmates studied, John piloted the ship back and forth. Oh, wow. How old is the 18? He's in the Naval Academy, so I think he's he's out of high school. Wow. Okay. In Rio, we hung out with admirals

and the president of Brazil. Sure. Like any like any young. Sure. Young. Yeah. Academy. Oh, yeah. At the Academy, John and his friends would drink, they'd sneak off grounds and get into fights. He was nearly kicked out of the Academy for his behavior, but his mother intervened and he was allowed to stay. He just beat up the superintendent of the Navy. John did not like people saying that he got special treatment. Oh, well, yeah, McNasty's gonna have to beat people, beat people from that. Yeah. After his mom saved, saved him from getting kicked out of school, the commandant told them he

was, quote, spoiled, which John greatly resented. Okay. For years, he heard his family helped his career and he never got over it. Quote, I grew red-faced and angry every time some know it all told me how easy a life my father had made for me. Okay. Chippin' away. Phil Butler, who lived across the hall from him, said, quote. May I get you anything, Master McNasty? That's not the same one. Master McNasty, anything from the poop deck? Just his last name. Yes. I'm from the Butler family. If your name is, last name is Butler, doesn't mean you're Butler. Shall I measure you for a pants? I'm Rick Taylor. Yeah, that's fine. I'm Butler. I'll get

you whatever you need. More ice for your bath? McNasty? Quote, he was a huge screw-off. He was always on probation. The only reason he graduated was because of his father and his grandfather. Man, he would not like to hear that quote. John proved his doubters wrong when he graduated, 894 out of 899 cadets. Hey, that's awesome. Those are five worst people. That's right. Yeah, or four, I guess. Yeah, I'm probably, usually in that situation, a couple of them got into like a car or train. They're not at graduation. That's right. Yeah. Jonathan McNasty. He went to flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Okay. There, he

crashed into Corpus Christi Bay on a flight. He was rescued. The plane sank. A Navy report concluded John failed to, quote, maintain an air speed above the stall speed. What? So he's just... He flew a plane so slow that it stalled and crashed. So he was driving like a senior citizen in the air? Yeah. Like 20? Yeah. Oh boy. But he graduated. His signal's on. What is he doing up there? What is going on with this guy? Jesus Christ. Is he turning or not? He graduated in 1960. Soon he was on a training mission in southern Spain where he flew too low. Okay. He hit electrical wires and caused a massive blackout in Spain. Oh jeez. That's not great.

LA Times quote, he brought his crippled Sky Raider back to the intrepid, dragging 10 feet of wire. He brought the plane back? Yeah. Well, he just like screwed up a wing and just damaged it. But he flew the plane back and it's covered in electric wire. Okay. So he's sure. Like a cartoon character? Sure. Yep. Very much like when a billionaire decides to fly a hot air balloon around the world. He severed an oil line and he and the plane were completely covered in oil. He was lucky to survive. Okay. In 1964, John began dating Carol Shep. Okay. Ex model. On weekends, he'd fly a Navy plane to Philly to see Carol. Okay. He's like flying into

her house. Yeah. One trip while he was flying back, he crashed. So, huh? At this point, I guess I would be gathering that he has a propensity for crashing. Well, he's not great at the flying of a plane. He seems to be able to get it up there. Yeah, you can get it up. But then, staying up is harder. Yeah. Is this a Viagra ad? Yep. John said there was an ex John said there was an explosion in the engine and he lost power and he had to bail when the engine wouldn't restart. Okay. Seven weeks later, the Naval Aviation Safety Center said it could not corroborate his account. They found, quote, no discrepancies which would have caused or

contributed to engine failure or malfunction. The report concluded John had made several errors and was lucky to be alive. Okay. But two weeks after issuing the report, the Safety Center revised all of its findings. The accident was now... Is that the admiral pass? That's weird that that would happen. That is weird that that would happen. Sure. Second thought, it did explode. Sorry about that. No, he's right. The accident was now due to a failure of a, quote, undetermined component in the engine. Sure. Like a column or something. Or a ghost. Yeah. Engine ghost. Okay. Any of his three crashes would have ended almost all

Navy pilot's careers. Nine times out of ten, you lose your wings for crashing one plane, let alone three. Three. Right. The Spain situation... He also took the power out of Spain. Well, that which led to an international incident. Okay. Would have, quote, found themselves as the deck officer on a destroyer someplace in a hurry. But John had family pull. So that's like the equivalent of when a cop gets desk duty. Yeah, he should have been... Anybody crashing three planes is not a Navy pilot. They frown upon that in the Navy. Yeah, yeah. It's not great to crash. Like if your job is to fly a plane. Fly it and land it. But you don't do that.

That's a... You're not good at the job. Right. Okay. So for those of us listening, the crashing of the plane, I think what David is saying, is not what the Navy is after. Yeah, they're not looking for crashing of planes. Right. Okay. Great. John now wanted to go to Vietnam to boost his profile as a pilot. Okay. But they weren't sending him. They don't have power lines. Well, they weren't sending him because he had crashed three planes. Right. And again, just for people who were just sending him, the Navy not into that. Not that in. Right. So like most pilots, John had a game of tennis with the undersecretary of the Navy. Sure. And there

he talked him into sending him to Vietnam, despite his terrible flight record. It's a hard sport to charm someone. It is. There's quite a distance. It really is. You've got to get up there for volleys at the same time. A lot of volleys. A lot of volleys back and forth. You know, I'm thinking I could really help in Vietnam. I think I got all the crashes out of my system. In 1966, he was sent to the USS Forest Hall in the South China Sea. By January 1967, John McCain was a lieutenant commander. Now, go ahead. Is it weird that he's being promoted because of the track record? Well, I believe that you're, I mean, I think as a pilot, as you

move on as a pilot, you get automatically promoted. Like pilots have a higher status. Okay. And then I assume when you go to war, you get kicked up a little bit more. Sure. Like he was going on bombing runs. He was doing things. Okay. Okay. In July 1967, he was in the cockpit preparing to take off from the forest hall for a bombing run. No one knows exactly what happened, but a missile from a nearby plane hit the plane next to John. A missile, okay. From the forest hall. Okay. So it was from the ship they were on. They blew up one of their own planes. Some people say that it was an accident that just went off. Well,

I'm hoping that some people blame John McCain. Did he fired a missile from the ship at himself? His own plane. He just accidentally hit the button. So there's a lot of different ideas. There's nothing that can verify that John McCain did that, but it's one of those rumors that's always been out there. Okay. But the belief is that it was an electronic malfunction from another plane that blew up the plane next to his. Okay. Explosions, right? Mayhem. Everything's fucking now going crazy. Sure. He jumped out of his plane. He rolls through the flames and just starts running amid explosions. Shrapnel went

into his chest and his legs, but he's not seriously injured. Others gave their lives to save the ship. They pushed jets into the sea to keep from bombs on the jets from going off, right? So the whole fucking thing's on fire. Wow. Okay. You need to get the planes that have bombs on them off the ship or they're going to blow up. Right. And that's all these guys are pushing the planes off the ship. Geez. Lieutenant Commander Herb Hope was quote, cornered by flames at the stern of the carrier. Hope hurled himself off the flight deck into a safety net and clambered into the hangar deck below where

the fire was spreading. Hope then took command of a firefighting team that would ultimately save the ship. Now that guy was three planes away from John. John, on the other hand, found safety in the Reading Room and watched on closed circuit television as his fellow soldiers saved the Forester. He watched on the TV, on the ship. He went into the Reading Room and watched everybody else work to save the ship. I mean, he might have thought he was watching a movie or something. As heroes will do. He might could very easily thought that he was

watching a war film. True. Boy, this is a good one. The accident killed 134 men. Oh, shit. In October 1967, during a bombing run on a Hanoi power plant, John was hit by a serviced air missile. He ejected. As he flew out, he broke his right knee. His arm snapped from the force of the wind and he was knocked unconscious. His shoot opened. He landed at a lake in the middle of Hanoi. He was pulled out by North Vietnamese and attacked. His shoulder was broken. He was bayoneted, kicked, and beaten. He was interrogated for four days.

He might have been killed, but the North Vietnamese learned that his dad was an admiral. Okay. And then they found this out because John told them. So, he name dropped. By the way, that would come out real early if that was me. In four days, there's quite a stretch. I know. I know. It'd be four minutes before I'd be like, get me a phone. I'll call daddy. You're not supposed to reveal that kind of info, but I'm dropping that shit right off. Here's a picture of him. Here's his number. But also, I'm not flying and

playing, killing Vietnamese also. So, it's too different. Rude. Yeah. So, John was interrogated and beaten. He gave up the name of a ship, the number of the raids he had flown, his squadron number, and the target of his final raid. Okay. Or as Senator Fred Thompson said at the 2008 Republican National Convention quote, when his captors wanted the names of other pilots in his squadron, John gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

That year in Philly, John said he had given up the names of the Minnesota Vikings offensive line. How many offensive linemen have to die for this fib? In truth, he gave up the name of a ship, the number of raids he had flown, his squadron number, and the final target of his raid. But why not switch that up? I'm a little distracted because I heard the Packers. After six weeks, John had lost 50 pounds, he had dysentery, his hair had gone white, and he was in a chest cast. They tried to...

Yeah, those aren't great. I mean, those are just bad. It's just a bad look, let alone everything else. Okay. They tried to get him to sign a tape recorder confession for his war crimes. He refused and was tortured for four days until he finally did. They put him in solitary and tried to get him to sign another confession. He wouldn't. He was tortured or put in solitary confinement for 15 months. Holy shit. Yeah. So those guys were all really fucking horribly treated. What was known as the Hanoi Hilton.

Yeah. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died. The Vietnamese treated the prisoners better after. They were allowed to spend the day in a communal space. John is fellow POWs would reenact entire movies. So he's living... Like the one I was watching when the ship was going down. Or like there's going to be one in the future. It's called Splash. Right. I'm a mermaid. Look at New York, my love. Can you believe the big city? Oh my god, I just walked into the bathroom and she's in the tub with a

fishtail. Could you reenact a movie? Oh yeah. You could? Yeah. What do you want to say? I'll do it right now. What do you want to say? Dear Hunter. Boy, that's a tough one. Here we go. I haven't seen it, by the way. All right, so uh... Hey, what are we... Okay. That was good. Hey, what are we? Hey, what are we credits? Do you know where Jim is? Credits. A lot of deer out here today. That's right. Credits. That's good. Yeah. Have you really never seen deer? No, I've seen deer. Okay.

Not for eight. So in the States, while this is going on, John's wife crashed her car into a telephone pole. Did she take down the city's power? I think she was like, I love you. I know you're going to throw a hard time. Honey, we have so much in common. I just took down Michigan's power. Uh, she had two smashed legs, a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a ruptured spleen. She spent... I like those moments where I hit a joke nicely and then the next line is like, she was dying. She spent six months in the hospital and had 23 operations

over the next two years. Holy shit. But I feel like that just means they weren't getting the operations right. Potentially, but I mean, god, I'm like 23 operations. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. That's three... Like you're getting a couple of those for free, you're having so many. I hope so. You get a hospital punch card. Yeah, they don't do that. So in 1970... Oh, by the way, Ross Pro, champion of POWs, paid for her medical care. I want to give her all her money to pay for her bills, okay?

I'm paying for 24 surgeries. I want her to have one extra. She doesn't need any more surgeries. We're going to give her one more. She doesn't need any more. We're going to give her an extra finger. For what? Huh? We're going to change her eye color. No, none of that is... The American people have spoken, okay? And I'm going to do what they've always wanted. We're going to have a dog attached to her back. No, sir. That's 24 surgeries. That's on Ross Pro. I support POWs more than anybody.

Yeah, but I feel like that's not supported. We're going to put a live dog on her back and they're going to become a human animal hybrid, all right? And the dog can vote. Okay? No. Well, look, I'm paying for one more. No, we're not doing one more. I'm going to have myself attached to her. Yes, I am. Yeah, the dog was a jumping off point. That's awful. Now I'm attaching myself to her. We're not going to do that. She'll do all the walking. And if she gets tired, she'll bend down a little,

then I'll do some of the walking. We're not doing any of this. All right. Well, can I just get a Dr. Pepper thing? Yep. All right. I'm a doctor. This is great. Goodbye. It goes out the window. Mr. Perot. In 1973, John was released after five and a half years as a POW. Carol was now different. Because of all the surgeries, she was now 5'4". Wow. She had been 5'8". Before. Wow. Jesus. So that's a lot of removal and posture. Yeah, there's a lot of leg parts coming off. Oh my God.

She'd also put on a lot of weight. POWs were welcomed home as heroes, unlike a lot of other soldiers, right? Right. John wrote a 13-page story for the U.S. News and World Report. The New York Times put a photo of him arriving home on his front page. At the White House, he got a photo shaking Nixon's hand. He took part in parades, made appearances, and got fan mail. Ross Perot introduced him to California Governor Ronald Reagan. You're going to like this guy. Who invited John to be the keynote speaker at his annual prayer breakfast.

Oh, the prayer breakfast. John's broken bones are not healed correctly. He had three operations and grueling physical therapy. He wanted to go... But his wife was like, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. 23 surgeries. 23. 24, once I'm fully attached. John wanted to go to the National War College, but one had to be a commander to do that, and he was only a lieutenant commander. The War College? Yeah, it's like prestigious, most important, whatever. War. It's where you go if you want to kill people. Oh, great.

For the government. I'm in... Do you have an application? Not like just randomly killing people on the streets, but like if you want to do it officially. Oh, right. Yeah. The heroic ones. Yeah, the one where you're not... Or you commit war crimes, but you're not ever convicted. It's like free killing. I feel like you're adding some personal attitude into this. He appealed all the way up to his dad's friend. Yes, John. What do you need, McNasty? The secretary of the Navy who somehow granted his request. Sure. So John was promoted to commander and went to the

National War College in 1970. And that's usually how most people get promoted from lieutenant commander to commander is by asking a dad's friend. Oh, it is. Okay. Yeah, all right. After all his physical therapy, he passed the physical to get his flight status reinstated. Oh, Jesus. There are differing opinions on whether he earned it or was given special treatment. Wow. Why do you think people would think he was given special treatment? Well, just because of McNasty's catchphrase, Daddy! Daddy, I want to fly again, Daddy. I'm very surprised by the

nepotism factor. I've never heard about that. Oh, yeah, weird. You know, you didn't hear anything about John McCain. That's the interesting thing about John McCain. He was a senator, right? Oh, boy. He was assigned to the Hellraisers training squadron in Jacksonville, Florida. Okay. That's their nickname, the Hellraisers. He was very into man as a war hero and gave speeches all over the place. He wanted to run for office but said there was too much competition in that district. He was also fucking tons of women and adultery is a court-martiable offense. Wow, so he's still married to Carol. Yeah, and he's banging everybody. Wow, okay.

John was rumored to have been involved with a number of his subordinates. That's okay to do. Super cool. Yeah. He was promoted in 1977 to captain and then to his father's old post as navy liaison to Congress. Oh, wow. Okay. And how did that happen? Probably hard work and sweat. He was basically the Navy's lobbyist. John was one of the most popular navy liaisons in history. You know, he's clearly super likable. Yes. Senators and staffers hung out in his office and had drinks. The McCain's entertained politicians in their home. But if an admiral's secretary called and asked John to hold for the admiral, John would slam the phone down.

And when it rang again, he would yell into it, quote, I hung up. You can't presume that I'm as busy as you are. If you really want to talk to me, pick up the phone yourself and call me. Now, if that was sung, well, that's a lot less rude. It's weird. Ordinarily in the Navy, a captain wouldn't yell that and an admiral. Right. Ordinarily. Sure. Because of the echelon of power. That's right. Right. In 1979, John met Cindy Lou Hensley. Still, still married to Carol. Yeah. Still married. He met Cindy Lou Hensley in Hawaii. She was a special education teacher, former rodeo beauty queen, former USC cheerleader, and her dad owned one of the largest Anheuser

Bush beer distributors in the United States. Okay. So probably like grew up in a one bedroom house. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Super poor. Right. She said she was 24. Oh, no. She was 24. He was 42. He told her he was 38 and she said she was 27. Oh, well, that's fun when you kind of lie to the middle together. That means you've got a lot in common. That's amazing. Lying up about your age. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That is cute. Over the next year, John flew to Arizona and courted Cindy. And he's still married. Oh, you picked up on that. Yeah. Yeah. Like any beautiful romance story, John proposed to Cindy while still living with his

wife, Carol. I've never, we've had that a few times on the show. That move is so insane to me. Yeah. You're a psychopath. I mean, you really have to like... For a year, while living with his wife, he flew to another state and courted and dated a woman while married to his wife. There was a woman who lived with them for a little while and she said that there was no indication there was anything wrong between John and Carol. Wow. Carol thought they had a wonderful relationship. Oh, my God. So she lost four inches from her overall height and he went to Arizona every weekend to lose four inches in Cindy. Who? Carol had absolutely no idea. Quote, I didn't know anything. And Cindy must have known about Carol. Yeah. She had to have. Carol had no idea. Quote,

I didn't know anything about it. I was pretty much blindsided and it broke my heart. And March... So he's just jack trippering from Arizona to where he lives with Carol. Yeah. Okay. In March, 1980, six weeks after he divorced Carol, John and Cindy were married. He picked up the pieces fast. None of his children that he had with Carol attended the wedding for some reason. What do you think it was? I don't know. Seating? Yeah, or just so far away. Eloping. They must have eloped. Yeah. After the wedding, John and Cindy found out about each other's real ages when a newspaper published it. Oh, God. I'm a liar, too. We're both fucking assholes. I am a liar. I lied to you.

You were married to someone? Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. Anywho, I love you. I love you. What a great... Want a Bud Light? This should really be like a story they tell in a movie. Want a Bud Light? I'm good with the Bud Light. You have to have one now. Okay. There you go. In the media, this didn't look very great. So John got out in front of the story and he spun it and left out the details that he wanted secret. Okay. He admitted he'd cheated and he apologized. Okay. The press focused on what a humble, honest interview he gave and what a great man he was to be so upfront about this mistake he had made. Man. That is... It's one of those weird standards we've always had where it's like some people will just get raked over the coals and

then some people go on Jay Leno and just apologize. That's right. Yeah. They had four kids, one Bridget who was adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage. In 1891, his father died and John retired from the Navy after 23 years. He had been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, a Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Wow. John and Sidney moved to Arizona. Where's that the Flying Cross is the only one I don't think I've heard of? Yeah, yeah. He didn't get the crashing cross, which he should have gotten three or four of. He actually crashed another plane. No, really? Yeah. Old together he was involved in about six plane crashes. Oh my God. John and Sidney moved to Arizona. Sidney's father gave John a job as VP

of Public Relations for the Anheuser-Busch Distributorship. Where do you start? Starting at VP. Yeah. You just walk in there and find the employee that's weakest and just beat the shit out of him and then you're VP. That's how it works. Yeah. A former executive at the company, quote, when you have the Budweiser franchise, you don't need PR. Okay. So his role is Vice President of PR. Yeah. His role is free money. Right. Yeah. I want that job. Beer does not need advertising. No. Particularly Budweiser. Yeah, no. You don't need a PR guy for Budweiser. So when you're a distributor especially. So John's basically just waiting for political opportunity to open up. Okay. And an event in Arizona, Charles Keating Jr., an Arizona developer,

an anti-porn crusader, introduced himself and they quickly became friends. How you doing? I hate porn. I hate porn too. Yeah, I really hate it. I used to be a Navy pilot. I just really blow with pornography. In January 1982, the congressman from the district next in the McCain's announced he was retiring. Okay. That very day, Cindy bought a house in his district. Okay. Which is super easy to do. I don't know if you've ever bought a house. No, it's easy to do. Super easy to buy one immediately. Oh yeah. I've Amazoned a couple houses this week. Two months later, John announced his candidacy for Congress. Okay. John liked to say campaign six hours a day, six days a week, going through two pairs of shoe during the campaign shoes.

He bragged, okay. He bragged how hard he walked and worked. Okay. He did not mention he spent 313,000 far more than anyone else in the campaign. Okay. Half came from loans to himself and another 100K came from Charles Keating. Oh, okay. You promised to get rid of porno, right? Yes. You swear to God. Porno's bad. It's the worst thing ever. Busty bosoms, sweaty genitals, hot wet stuff. Man on top of a lady. Oh, God. Plains. Yeah, planes, planes, planes. Sydney and her dad also invested 359,000 in the shopping center Charles Keating was building. Okay. John went and served two terms in the house, right? So he just fucking rolled through the house. Sure. Almost as soon as he hit D.C., the Washington Post in 1982 suggested he was not

a Reagan man, but a pragmatic, non-ideological Republican. Okay. But John was a standard Reagan conservative, backing trickle down economics opposing equal rights, busing the use of federal funds for abortions, for porno, and he also voted against making M.L.K. a holiday. Wait, he was pro? He was anti-abortion. Oh, very anti-abortion. Okay, right. And against an M.L.K. holiday. Sure. So he was a typical right-wing Reagan Republican. Sure. In 1986, John told a joke during a speech in D.C. quote, I have a really bad feeling about this. Did you hear the one about the woman who was attacked on the street by a gorilla beating senseless, raped, repeatedly, and left to die? What? What? He's giving a speech to that private

function. Still, the setup is horrifying. He's telling a joke. Not well. Did you hear the one about the woman who was attacked on the street by a gorilla beating senseless, raped, repeatedly, and left to die? When she found the organ's consciousness, she tries to speak. Her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently, and she feebly asks, where is that marvelous ape? Oh my god. The M.L.K. John McCain. Good Lord. I wonder, how do you react to a joke like that? You're like, okay, is there a punch line? Well, why not tell that joke? Because he was now running for the Senate. John won the Senate seat. In 1987, federal auditors were looking at Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan. Keating called Arizona State Senator Dennis D.Consini,

whom he had donated a lot of money to. Okay. He told D.Consini to put together a meeting with the five senators he had given a lot of money to, one of whom was John McCain. Before I let you go, have you heard the one about the rape ape? Oh man. Sit down, pal, because you're going to laugh yourself off whatever you're next to. So John, all together, over his political career, had gotten 112,000 in contributions from Charles, as well as Charles holding dinners for him, fundraising dinners and whatnot. And John had helped Charles cosponsoring a resolution to delay regulations against savings and loans. It's amazing how it's always been this way. Yeah. But at first, John did not want to go to this meeting that Charles wanted him to go to. Okay.

Keating called John a wimp, and John heard about it. The next Keating marched into John's office and handed John a list of demands that he was going to show federal regulators. Oh, shit. John went to the meeting. Okay. It was with the chairman of the federal home loan bank board. Gotcha. Deconcini and four senators. Now, that guy, the chairman, didn't know anything about the investigation that was happening. So he set up a meeting with regulators who did. Okay. And that meeting was with three higher up regulators at the federal home loan bank board in San Francisco, including the director. Okay. The regulators realized right away when the five senators came in and a state senator that Keating, Charles Keating was trying to show off his power. Oh, shit.

One of the regulators, William Black, took notes. John said, quote, one of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion. ACC, so ACC is the company that controls the Lincoln Sammings alone. ACC is a big employer and important to the local economy. I don't want any special favors for them. I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper. Immediately, the regulators became nervous. Yeah. It was a very weird thing to say. Yeah. Black, quote, McCain was the weirdest. McCain was wringing his hands about what to do. Stereotype, greedy stereotype. The regulators said this was a very unusual meeting to have. Black, Senate historians weren't able to find any instance in US history that was comparable in terms of five US senators

meeting with a regulator on behalf of one institution. And it has not happened since. And that's really saying something. I mean, that's bold. The meeting went on for a while. John tried to act like he was just a senator, making sure Lincoln Savings was, quote, fairly treated. Sure. Black said that was bullshit. Okay. Keating was a powerful political godfather in Arizona. Finally, the director said they were referring the case to the Department of Justice. Like they were not supposed to tell him this, but they just got tired of the fucking bullshit. Okay. And she throws down, they're referring to the Department of Justice. There are tons of charges coming, quote, I can't tell you strongly how serious this is. This is not a profitable

institution. They were told not to tell the Savings alone and Keating anything. A month later, the regulators recommended Lincoln Savings be seized by the government. Okay. So this is going according to plan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's when there was a shake up at the regulator's office. Oh my God. Black and the director were out. A new guy took over. John McCain. The investigation was moved to San Francisco, from San Francisco to Washington, DC, and a brand new audit was ordered. Black was furious, quote, we were clearly shot in the back. But word got out to the parent company of Lincoln, ACC, and they celebrated, quote, someone hurled the computer from the second floor shattering a window. Keating struck a Superman pose and ripped open his shirt to display

a hand-drawn skull and crossbones over the letters FHLBB, federal home loan, bank boards. Jesus. So they are Wolf of Wall Street partying. They are Led Zepplening. Potted plants were knocked over. Beer and champagne were spilled all over the desk. Dude, a guy threw a computer out the window. Get out of here with your potted plants. Keating yelled, get this champagne colder. Put it in the McCain bath. Wow. Get the champagne colder. Yeah. But Keating's businesses were going down. There was soon an investigation into the five senators' misconduct. Okay. John then showed how he could play the press.

He got out right in front of the story and got himself constantly on TV, whereas the other guys hid from it. John was all over it, right? He goes on Nightline. He goes on this week with David Brinkley. He's on everything. And he leaks information. He did a show at the Apollo. He did a show at the Apollo. Yeah, yeah. Got boot off. Yeah, the Sandman took him away. He didn't run the log. Nope. He also started leaking information about his fellow senators and Deconcini to make himself seem not as bad. It's so like high school. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Wow. It's also kind of Trumpy, the way that you're like, I will tell the narrative. Oh, it seems Trumpy. Okay. Knock it off. But under oath, John said he had absolutely nothing to do

with the leaks. A congressional investigator, quote, McCain was one of the principal leakers. Okay. So, all right. So he burgeoned himself. Yeah, you're on that. John underwent two months of daily televised hearings. He would alternate between tearful remorse and angry defiance at this political witch hunt. Okay. Two years after the meetings, during which time the SNL kept fucking people over. After the senators got the investigation moved and delayed, the government seized Lincoln Samings alone. Okay. So they, they got it, they, it was going to be seized two years before these senators may not happen. And in that time, the savings alone, another savings alone continues to do the business of fucking

over investors. 20,000 investors had bought junk bonds believing they were federally insured. They were not. Their savings were wiped out. Taxpayers. This is called Wells Fargoing. Taxpayers were on the hook for $3.4 billion. Oh my God. Jesus. Black, William Black, quote, McCain saw the political pressure on the regulators. He could have saved these widows from losing their life savings, but he did absolutely nothing. I should also add that my grandparents lost a shitload of money because of what McCain did. Then it was revealed by the Arizona Republic paper that Cindy and her dad had invested 350,000 in the shopping center. That's not going to be good. And that the McCain's had made nine trips

at Keating's expense. Oh, Jesus. Three to the Bahamas. Well, you've got to win the Bahamian vote. Yeah, if you're going to go, you've got to Bahama. Yeah. I mean, you're going to corrupt. Yeah, but they're a voting part of Arizona. John put the blame on Cindy because he said she was in charge of household finances. She lied to me about how old she was. Goddamn it, she's a liar. It was Carol. Awful Carol did this. The one that got shorter. The shorter one. I had a wife that was five eight. I come back, she's five four. You tell me about that. I got one that's two years older than she's supposed to be and one that keeps shrinking.

When the Arizona Republic called, the reporter asked John about it and John called him a liar and said, quote, that's the spouse's involvement, you idiot. Do you understand English, don't you? Oh, Jesus. But then pretty quickly, John read the wind and decided to become the best interviewee possible. So I went back to his old mode, right? Charm him. Get out in front of it and charm him. This was when the love affair between John and the media really blossomed. He's cheating on Cindy now? He held a 90 minute news conference and answered every single question. He said the shopping center deal was his wife and father-in-law and he had absolutely no idea about it. Of course, because when your wife buys into a shopping center, she doesn't mention it to

her spouse. You don't talk about that sort of stuff. No, why would you talk about that sort of stuff? If you do, it's a passing. Yeah, you don't. Oh, I did the dry cleaning. I went to the store, bought a shopping center, got my nails done, got the tires rotated. I came back, took a nap, cooked for a little while. Yeah, tires rotated. That was kind of the highlight of the day, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Would you crash today, hun? Just four planes. All right. In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee came up with their punishments for the senators. We'd like to see your wrists. John got a light scolding. Okay. For quote, poor judgment for intervening with federal regulators. Okay. Yeah, that is in poor judgment. Naughty John. How dare

you fuck humans out of their money? You get one spanking. Keating went to jail for 12 years, but it was overturned under technicality. John was the only senator who testified in the civil suit by shareholders and the other senators refused. And the savings and low scandal, the savings and low scandal led to the failure of 747 savings and loans in the United States. The losses were 160.1 billion. Oh my God. 124.6 billion was paid by the government, which is also known as taxpayers. Right. So he did crash again. John Cain got a scolding. Right. Only John and one other senator were reelected. The others retired. John called the quote, the worst thing, the absolutely worst thing that ever happened to me. Oh, Jesus. Does that remind

you of someone? Yes. Later, he would call the Keating five corruption scandal his quote, asterisk. Oh my God. Like your Barry Bonds. Wow. People lost, old people lost their savings. Do you know what that does? No, you don't if you're raised in households that have no connection to you. Yeah. And he started there. He is, he is the term fail son. Yeah. He is a fucking fail son. Yeah. Okay. Six months later, John hosted a family reunion at the Bermuda Naval Air Station. Okay. 11 people from his family came and stayed in luxury rooms. Hey, guess who brought my heart lemonade? Is that that's the family? Yeah, no, it's me, Ross. I'm still here hanging out. Hey, I think I accidentally got sent an invitation. Yeah, yeah, please go. All right,

take care of everybody. I'm gonna swim home. So 11 people stayed in luxury rooms for seven days of taxpayer expense. Wow. A petty officer quote, sailors had been assigned to be Cindy's driver. And they carried her bags after she went shopping at the expensive shops on the island. It's like they were her servants. This was the treatment made a little petty. This was the treatment many VIPs were getting. But the petty petty officer was a whistleblower and he he alerted the media to what was happening. Okay. The base had no military purpose. It was a taxpayer subsidized vacation spot for VIPs. Over for over two years, 180 VAPs had visited for quote official business. But there was no business. Wow. John's group was the largest group to ever

go to the base. Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Biggest one ever. This is a pretty clearly illegal as government officials and officers can't use planes and cars for vacations. Weird. But the only guy only the guy who blew the whistle was punished. Oh my god. He was sent to see a psychiatrist, which is pretty common back then in in the military. If you fuck up, they send you to psychiatrist, send you to a psychiatrist who says you're crazy and then they lock you up. Like that's the fucking deal. So that's what they're trying to do to this guy who just told the truth. So the psychiatrist told him, quote, I've been contacted before but never in advance by a fleet commander staff, a sender staff, and the secretary of the Navy staff to try and influence my evaluation.

Wow. So John McCain was really was trying to destroy this guy. John never responded to the allegation that he tried to get a whistleblower certified as crazy. The base was closed. Party base? Yeah. Party base is closed. Party base is gone? Yeah. Sorry, bro. But no, that's it, bro. I was just about to fight a war on this keg. Yeah. Well, you got to fight a war on a keg. Maybe your own house or a party up in the hills. It's not a neutral battlefield. It's not a neutral battlefield. I kill a lot of kegs in my place alone. I know. Well, that's maybe that's what you should keep doing. This was a certain number. Maybe one more party party base? No, party base is gone. Maybe just one bigger beer party base?

No, party base is closed. We'll check on one beer real quick. Party base. Why don't you open a new party base? Why don't you call your house party base? It's just not the same. I don't know if I have a moment alone with party base. No, there's no, no, you can't be alone with party base. Can I drink one beer and party base? No. Let's have a party and party base. Okay, now we're going back. Ah, man, fuck this. You're a terrible soldier. John, after all this, decide to sell himself as the guy who is going to clean up Washington DC. What's wrong? I'm not a fan of yours either. Well, no, I think a guy who should clearly be in prison should be the guy to clean up DC.

Yeah. For the first time, he should be in prison for the keating shit. Yeah. He should be in prison for a long fucking time. A long fucking time. But right now, he's a senator. For the first time, he started supporting financial reform. He took on the meaningless cause of eliminating congressional parking privileges near the runway at Reagan National Airport. Oh my God. He spoke about how, so they parked near the runway and he's trying to get the, but that's one of the one of the few things I go, they should park near the runway because they're congressional people and they have to fucking travel back and forth the constituency. It's also just like, I mean, on the tier of objectives. It's ridiculous. Parking.

Well, yo, it gives him, it gives, it gives everybody the impression that he is fighting for something and he's actually fighting for absolutely fucking nothing. Right. In a speech, he said, he spoke about how Congress was noble and they should demonstrate how honored they were, quote, to be of the people no matter how small or symbolic. And this was the first time John McCain was called the Maverick. I miss McNasty. In his story by the Washington Post about how he was a moderate, sometimes fighting his own party to do what was right. Okay.

In 1991, the Persian Gulf War broke out and John was suddenly, for some reason, the go-to war guy for everybody. He was suddenly a national authority on foreign affairs. War was here and it was like the Keating scandal had never happened. Campaign again in 1992, John was with Cindy. A reporter said, quote, at one point Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, you're getting a little thin up there. John's face reddened and he responded, quote, at least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt. Oh my God. In front of a reporter?

And a couple of age, yeah, a couple of reporters. John denied he said it at first, but then later said, well, it had been a long day and he was tired. He said, I was going bald, that cunt. If I ever called my wife that we would get a divorce, I mean, I never would, but I can't imagine being in a marriage where you do that. You're not married to the person. You're a fucking piece of shit. No, that's like poking someone's chest and then they stab you in the throat. Yeah, it's completely insane.

Yeah. The retaliation is strong. A bit. John denied he said it at first, right? And then he was elected. Okay. So he was reelected that year. By now, John's temper was legendary in Arizona. After running over an Arizona water project, an editor at the Arizona Republic said, quote, most of us in the media in Arizona thought of him as a guy who had a terrible temper. Occasionally had a foul mouth, a guy who whined and pouted unless he got his way. McCain has a temper that is bombastic, volatile and purple faced. Sometimes he gets out of control.

He's still holding that breath. Yeah, it's like it's like the two year old. He's still the two year old. When I go purple, I win. Because people say his anger stuff is from what happened to him in Vietnam, but that's not what the history record tells us. And the Senate, John was a part of a committee investigating leads on POWs. So there's all these people that still think POWs were still there, especially in the 90s. It was a big thing. Right, right, right.

A lot of that is people taking advantage of family members, but there are a lot of family members that want to believe their son is still alive, their brother is still alive. It would make John furious. John didn't think there were any POWs left behind and was hostile to anyone who did. Some were just parents desperate to believe their kid could be alive. During one hearing, John yelled at the sister of an MAA soldier until she started crying. Later, an elderly mother of an MAA soldier came to talk to John about her son and they met in the hallway of the Senate. John was livid. He raised his hand as if he was going to hit her. But then he stopped himself.

There's reporters watching this. She was in a wheelchair. Oh, Jesus. So he just grabbed the wheelchair and pushed her away. Oh, my God. The Maverick. That year, he was reelected to the Senate, but he was still funny. In 1998, when Chelsea Clinton was 18, John... He still had some more of those gorilla jokes because those are killing.

John told the joke at a fundraiser, quote, why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno. Oh, my God, dude. Are you still liking the Maverick, your old Maverick guy? Well, I don't think he's a good roaster. That's a fair swipe to take at the man. In January 2000, it was revealed Paxson Communications executives donated 20,000 to the Straight Talk Express. That's John's...

Bus. Bus, yeah. The company happened to be waiting for approval for a television license from the FCC. John flew on a Paxson jet to a fundraiser and then sent a letter that was written by a Paxson lobbyist to the FCC the very next day. Then he sent a second letter and then he called. The FCC chair called John's interference, quote, highly unusual. He's, quote, sweating us. John also prodded the FCC for a meritech when that story broke. He got out in front of it.

He sent out 500 letters to different regulators in order to kill the story by by by burying it in a pile of messy, fact-filled documents. Okay. And it worked. So why not run for president? John announced an Iran a somewhat populist campaign, stressing campaign finance reform, slagging off lobbyists, closing of corporate tax loopholes, and attacking Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as, quote, agents of intolerance. He was the pro-warist of the pro-war. John made

William Crystal, one of his close advisors. Crystal is renowned for being wrong about everything. John hired. It's the Bill Crystal Ball. It's a Bill Crystal Ball. John hired the right wing, a hard right lobbyist, as his top foreign policy guy. And he started championing what he called rogue state rollback. Okay. He wanted war.

Iraq was first up. This is 2000. Yeah. 1999. Yeah. The media couldn't get enough of John during the 2000 campaign. Tucker Carlson, quote, there are the employees of major news organization organizations who usually at night in the hotel bar, slipped into the habit of referring to the McCann campaign, the McCann campaign, as we as in, I hope we kill Bush.

Oh, Jesus. McCann hosted barbecues for journalists at his Arizona ranch, TV anchors, and newspaper reporters would drink beer and cocktails under the desert stun as John manned the grill. All buddies. He had a bus called the Straight Talk Express. It was packed with journalists and basically a constant news conference with their buddy, John. In South Carolina, he was asked about a derogatory term he still used for Vietnamese people. Oh God, I remember this.

Quote, I hate the gooks. Oh my God. I will hate them as long as I live. Okay, I'm off the Straight Talk Express. Jump and ship. Later, he explained that he was referring just to the prison guards who tortured him, quote, I will continue to refer to them in a language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends.

It is so weird because while my overall opinion of him was positive, these are all Trump roots. It's like Diet Trump, just like the way that you are able to manipulate the system and not apologize when you're wrong and just hang in there. Well, thankfully John did not fight a war in Nigeria. The Racist Talk Express. What? Thankfully he did not fight a war in Nigeria, right? Yeah.

Because gooks would be a different term, wouldn't it? Yes. The word gook is in no way a term just applied to Vietnamese. It was first used in 1899 by US soldiers fighting Filipinos. It was used during the Korean War for both Koreans and Chinese. In 2000, it was being used as a slur against Asian or Pacific Islanders. John did not care. Isn't it amazing that even our racist terms are racist themselves?

Yeah. Like we're not even adept enough to come up with a specific one. Yeah. Like we're just lazy enough to just be like, move it around. It's everybody. Everybody's one. But so he's offending all Asians. Yes, for sure.

All Asians. For sure. It doesn't care. It doesn't apologize for it. This has all made it weirder because he had spent the 80s and 90s pushing for restoring diplomatic relationships with Vietnam and had been part of the meetings to do so. I assume he didn't call the diplomats gooks. No, I would hope not.

In February 2000, John dropped out of the Republican race. George W. Bush had won and he'd played dirty. He pushed the idea that Bridget was John McCain's quote black love child. Who? Bush. Bush that Bridget. The Bush campaign. Oh, secretly. Robo calls.

Things like that. Put out the word. The Bridget was John McCain's black love child. Okay. Next, John said he would take the guy. So he's done. That was the end of his election. He lost that state and then he was out.

Also, just a great detail to America's open-mindedness. Yeah. Yeah. And that's Carl Rove who was behind that. And if you want, you can see masterclass with David Axelad and having a good talk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Next, John said he would take the government back from big money. I need to be here. Yeah, because I'm going to crush you at the end of this. Of course. It gets so much worse. Next, John said he would take the government back from big money special interests. A nonpartisan, non-profit organization called the Reform Institute was created. Uh-huh.

Well, things that are always named stuff like that are always on the up and up. John was the honorary chair. The no-take money group. The seed money came from a formal Merrill Lynch CEO. Which is the best way to get reform. Yeah. No, for sure. As a non-profit, the Reform Institute could take unlimited, unregulated donations that John's

PAC could not take. Strangely, all the institute's political positions, nonpartisan, aligned exactly with John McCain's. The institute paid John for public appearances. His campaign manager was president and made 400,000 in three years. The Reform Institute used the same office space as McCain's PAC, his reelection committee, and a lobbying firm that he used named Davis Manafort. There's a name familiar with. Between 1997 and June 2006, John collected 2.6 million from telecommunications, media, and tech

firms. In return, he wrote letters to the FCC for those companies. Twice the Reform Institute solicited 100,000 from Cablevision after the CEO testified in front of John's Senate Commerce Committee. Wait, what does that mean exactly? It means that after the fucking guy went and testified, John would grill him and then he'd be like, hey, man, we can actually make this work. John left the Reform Institute in 2005, but its goals stayed aligned with his.

About the Reform Institute, the chair of the Federal Election Commission said, quote, appearance of corruption, anyone? Wow, so he kind of like, he went sort of real sassy on it. Conflict of interest, party of McCain. Hello. And yet John's image remained the opposite. He was the Maverick. He was a moderate.

And he cared about finance reform. In 2001, he said, quote, as long as the wealthiest Americans and the richest organized interests can make these six and seven-figured donations to political parties and gain the special access to power that such generosity confers on the donor, most Americans will dismiss the most virtuous politicians' claim of patriotism. But that's what he's doing. Is what he's doing. It's what he's doing.

Right. Right. John sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. And that's called BUY. Bipartisan. Also knows the McCain fine gold act. It was to curb soft money. Which is what that fucking institute is. Let him police it, would you?

9-11 came. Finally a feel good moment. John then took the lead in pushing for war with everyone. Quote, there's other organizations besides Mr. bin Laden who are bent on destruction of the United States. It isn't just Afghanistan we're talking about. Syria, Iraq, Iran, perhaps North Korea, Libya and others. He wants to go to war with everyone.

I mean, and others leaves it pretty open. France, Ireland. He told Jay Leno, some other countries, possibly Iraq, Iran, and Syria, had aided bin Laden. After the anthrax attacks in America, he told David Letterman that quote, we'll do fine in Afghanistan. Well, why is he just doing the late night run cert? Well, everybody loves him.

He's the liberals. Still, it's like a weird like. But everybody loves. So that's the thing about McCain. He's not like other senators. He's always on those shows. He's constantly doing this. We'll do fine in Afghanistan.

The second phase is Iraq. Some of this anthrax may and I emphasize may have come from Iraq. It didn't know. On Larry King, you talked about slums weapons of mass destruction. Quote, the Czech government has revealed meetings, contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Mohammed Atta. The evidence is very clear. We so we will have to act on nightline.

Quote, there is no doubt as a Saddam's avid pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. Exciting and completely not true. In January 2002, John went to the Middle East. On the USS Theodore Roosevelt, he stood on the flight bridge and he watched fighter planes taking off on their bombing runs to Afghanistan. And he yelled, quote, next up Baghdad. For the next 15 months, John's heart on for an Iraqi invasion could be seen from space.

That's that's exaggeration. Oh, okay. That's not a fact. We think we see it, but is he near a forest? His top foreign policy advisor set up a group called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. John was the honorary co-chair. In September 2002, John said the war could, quote, be won fairly easily with

an overwhelming victory in a very short time period. Sure. He said Iraq. By the way, that is true because we're almost done there. We are almost done. He said the Iraqis would treat us as liberators. On October 10, 2002, the Senate rushed to give President Bush the power to use force against Iraq. John said Saddam, quote, is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon.

Well, I mean, if anyone knows about a crash course and has developed stocks of germs and toxins in sufficient quantities to kill the entire population of the earth multiple times, he develops nuclear weapons with which he would hold his neighbors and us hostage. Just to be safe, we will kill the world twice. And then he said Al-Qaeda and Saddam work together. All of this, of course, was a complete fucking lie. Sounded real real at the time though, man. It did.

Pretty convincing. We did invade Iraq, and he was right about everything, obviously. Yeah, we were welcomed as liberators. We found the germ shed. In and out of the germ shed, we found all the nuke, the big nuke, a bunker. John, still, after all this, somehow seen as a maverick, such a maverick, then in 2004, when John Kerry was running for president, he asked John McCain to be his vice president candidate.

And we all know how that went. Because John was at every level's favorite Republican. Despite everything about him, he was now often on The Daily Show, swapping jokes with John Stewart. I assume they never joked about John spending his career being anti-abortion. Anyway, John was elected to his fourth term in the Senate. You're really taking some swipes over here, Anthony. In 2005, Oleg Derpaska, a criminal and the ninth wealthiest person in the world,

also known as Putin's oligarch. Oh, God. Bought a Montenegro aluminum plant and privatized it. The plan accounted for 40% of Montenegro's GDP. He basically took control of Montenegro's economy by buying this plant. Jesus. Montenegro then sought independence from Serbia. A multimillion dollar campaign was run by lobbying firm Davis Manafort.

Davis was John McCain's campaign manager. He set up an intimate meeting. So there's like 10 people in the world, right? That's where we're at. He set up a meeting with John and Derpaska at a villa in Switzerland. Of course. You got to do a classy. People find out about it.

And John said a campaign letter that said, quote, any contact between Mr. Derpaska and the senator was social and incidental. That lie still holds up. Yeah. And now Derpaska had been banned from entering the United States due to death threats, extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. Anything bad? No.

A couple of years before, he had hired one of John's aides and Bob Dole to lobby the State Department to overturn the ban. Dole then got John to promote Montenegro's independence. Sure. And I'm sure Davis didn't hurt either. He called it, quote, the greatest European democracy project since the end of the Cold War. This is unbelievable. I mean, that level.

The referendum passed. A few months later, John celebrated his 70th birthday on a yacht hosted by convicted Italian fellow Raffiello Folieri and his girlfriend Anne Hathaway in Montenegro. OK. Well, that's the guy who just ghosted Anne Hathaway. Yeah. Yeah. As the Iraq war dragged on and it was a complete disaster, John began pushing for an increase in troops.

He wanted 20,000 more in Baghdad and 100,000 over five years. Opposition ads in the US called it, quote, McCain's idea. Presidential candidate John Edwards called it the McCain doctrine. John Edwards, good guy. Yeah, yeah. Good guy. Good guy. He's also a great family man.

Good guy. Hi. John ran for president again in 2006 during the campaign. John explained how he felt in the run up to the Iraq war during a debate. OK. Quote, the American people were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking. Some politicians went on Letterman and Leno and they kept perpetuating stuff like this.

Well, you know, the truth is that, yes, bullshit, it also is a testament to how dumb we are and how weak our attention spans are that we're unable to retain reality. Our job, this is the media's job. Our job is to react to truth, which we're not given. Yeah. If the media does not immediately say that's fucking bullshit, it's really hard to remember because how many politicians are doing that, what he does. So, I mean, you know, it's their job to fucking.

I mean, is it not every politician? It's Jake Tapper to immediately say this. Hey, hey, hey. But they're buddies. You stay away from taps. He's a street shooter, man. Oh, I took out the thing about him. Fair and balanced.

McCain said he told Bush to dump Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Quote, I'm the only one that said Rumsfeld had to go. Yeah. The actual quote from 2004, Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. Well, yeah. But I think if you read into that, you say fire him. Different. Yeah, I don't know.

You're right, you're right. Because fine job is like he's doing OK. But you can also hear it. Let me say it. Here you go. Yeah. Oh, Rumsfeld? Oh, yeah.

He's doing a fine job. OK. You say it like that. Hashtag I roll. OK. Now I totally, now I'm on board. Oh, that's how I said it. The straight talk express was back.

But this time the straight talk express was much harder, John. It's a shame that the VP was writing in the bullshit what's going on express behind them. I'm in the lie car. I'll be in the crazy mobile with the clowns. John had to walk the fine line between being a maverick and courting the religious right now. Yeah.

During one interview, he was asked about gay marriage and said, quote, I think gay marriage should be allowed if there is a ceremony kind of thing. If you want to call it that, then a campaign strategist whispered something to John. Soon during a totally unrelated question, John burst out with, quote, can I just mention one other thing on the issue of gay marriage?

I believe that people want to have private ceremonies. That's fine. I do not believe gay marriage should be legal. Wow. So he just doesn't know what to say anymore because he's trying to court the right. Well, that guy was on the straight talk express. So he just came off.

Now this is straight talk, not gay talk. People call them out for taking new positions on many topics. John denied it, quote. What specific area have I, quote, changed? Nobody can name it. Okay, I will. The Bush tax cuts, the estate tax, waterboarding, hunting terrorists in Pakistan, kicking Russia out of the G8,

troops search in Afghanistan, the GI Bill, storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, teaching intelligent design, funding no child left behind, offshore drilling, his own immigration policy, and withdrawal timelines for Iraq. Give me a 21st. Of the mat that he didn't switch on anything. Exactly. In 2000, John had denounced Jerry Falwell as a

quote, agent of intolerance. Now he was giving the commencement speech at Falwell's Liberty University. Prayer breakfast. Oh, God. He sought the support of Texas preacher John Hagey, even though Hagey had blamed Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans acceptance of gay people.

Well, I mean, to be fair, we've not proved the contrary. We haven't. Nobody sat down Katrina for an interview since. Also, Ohio preacher Rod Parsley, whom John called a spiritual guide. Parsley believes America was founded in part to destroy Islam.

But after negative headlines attacking his image as a moderate, John repudiated the Hagey and Parsley's endorsements. Okay. At a town hall, someone asked John about his policy on Tehran. John said, quote, that old, that old Beach Boys. Uh, uh, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.

Anyway, when he was critical, criticized about being so callous about bombing into the country, he said, quote, lighten up and get a life. When he was asked if that was insensitive, he said, quote, insensitive to what? Iranians? Uh, yes, from the affirmative times. Yes, sir.

Not a Republican thought John should be president. He once almost came to blows on the Senate floor with an elderly Strom Thurman. Okay. Let me just say it before that. Yeah, yeah, I mean, super pro someone punching Strom Thurman in the face. Well, but if you punch Strom Thurman in the face, it's

just like punching some paper mache with dust in the middle. It's just like your fist goes right through it. If your fist goes right through it, you're like, uh, cobwebs. Look at all this white hair. My spiders are leaking. Strom white spiders. He also got, uh, John also got into a fist fight with

Congresswoman Rick Renzi at one point. Jesus. Former Republican, imagine being an adult and getting into a fist fight in Congress. I know. I probably would get there. Yeah. Yeah, you, you, you for sure.

Advocate it. Yeah. Um, former Republican Senator Robert Smith publicly said John's temper, quote, would place this country in, at risk in international affairs and the world perhaps in danger. Could you just imagine? Republican Senator Thad Cochran agreed, quote, the

thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me. Maverick. But the press loved him. Yeah.

He was a maverick. John was asked during the campaign how many houses he owned and he could not remember. He said he'd have to ask his staff. That's, uh, wow. Let this, these are not good answers. Let me ask my, uh, let me ask the maids in the quarters. Where's my boy?

I have a small Asian boy that tells me things. I, uh, how many houses is it? 16. There it is. Cindy and John owned at least eight. Wow. One they bought for their 22 year old daughter, Megan. Years later, Megan would have a shit fit about

socialism on the view. The McCain's own 13 cars, their budget for household employees was $273,000 a year. In August, John picks Sarah Palin to be his VP running mate. She had been governor of Alaska for two years after being a mayor of a small town. John met her once and spoke to her once on the phone

before picking her. There appeared to be no vetting by his campaign. I think that that's safe to say. Palin had tried to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired. As governor, she spent over 13,000 in taxpayer funds to attend 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors.

She even billed the state for visits to her own church. Well, I mean, we know what we're dealing with. She's an American treasure. Yeah. I mean, just something special. Palin was a joke to the media, routinely mocked, and came across as rather stupid in interviews.

She couldn't name books she had read. Well, that's a gotcha question. Yeah. She couldn't name Supreme Court justices. Well, that's a gotcha question. She would say absurd things, but her anti-intellectualism and disrespect for facts began to be cheered by the GOP base.

John still seemed the decent maverick liberals thought he was at the beginning of the campaign when it was close. He had ruled out going after Obama for his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who if you want to go read his quotes, read the go to the Jeremiah Wright controversy and you can read the quotes for why he was considered to be crazy and they're all remarkably spot on.

He said stuff like, well, 9-Eleven happened because the chickens came home to roost, which is why 9-Eleven happened. Yeah. But we're not allowed to talk about the truth. Right. You can't say the truth. Yeah.

When a conservative radio host at a rally called Obama Hussain three times, John held a press conference to apologize, quote, it will never happen again. But then the financial crisis hit. John suspended his campaign and went back to DC, saying he was going back to help fix the problem. But when he got there, he had no plan and he had no idea what to do and Republicans were making things difficult

and John ended up looking like an idiot. He plummeted in the polls and then his campaign went dirty. Senator Lindsey Graham said, quote, the campaign would go down in history as stupid if they don't unleash Sarah Palin. And Sarah Palin was unleashed. She went after Obama as un-American and very suspect. John hired the two guys in 2000 who had run the campaign against him, claiming Bridget was his, quote, black love child.

Now they ran ads claiming Obama supported teaching sex ed to kindergarten's and in the ads, they darkened his skin. Oh, my God. In a lot of McCain's ads, Obama's skin was darkened. The campaign became a smorgasbord of racist dog whistles. Obama was all but flat out called a Muslim terrorist or an agent sent to overthrow the U.S. government. The trick was simple, make Obama appear on American,

which was easy to do because of his name and his skin color. Palin, quote, this is not a man who sees America as you see America and I see America. Our opponent is someone who sees America. It seems as being so imperfect that he's piling around with terrorists who would target their own country. Oh, God, it's so fucking racist. McCain's campaign put out an ad saying Obama was associated

with a domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground, from the 60s. McCain, quote, the American people know a radical when they hear it. And John McCain is not the candidate in this election they should be concerned about. He said the American- It's the black guy. He said, he's the black guy.

He said, I don't know why you're doing that in Ross Perot's voice. Hey, I'm back. You should do it in John McCain's voice. I don't have a John McCain. I got a Ross Perot, though. Ah, John McCain sent me. He said the American people had to know the full extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers.

The McCain campaign contacted a man whose home had been blown up back in the day and the weather ground was suspected. Yeah, it was that guy. He bought my house. The man put out a statement, quote, Barack Obama's friend tried to kill my family. Oh my God, dude. I mean, can we?

The Maverick, the liberal friend John McCain. The campaign sent out flyers with mugshots of Ayers and the words terrorist radical friend of Obama. Rally's now had speakers saying Obama's middle name or as John said, quote, it will never happen again. From an ad, quote, think about how you feel on number fifth if you see the news that Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States.

Ads asked, quote, who is Barack Obama? And reminded the audiences of his terrorist connections. One ad, quote, how dangerous. Sure, these ideas have been around for a while in the crazy corners of the right wing internet. But now a GOP presidential candidate was saying them and giving them credence. John McCain was legitimizing the right wing fringe madness.

Just kind of lifting the lid on Pandora's box a gentle bit. Now when John took the stage, people yelled out, treason, traitor, terrorist, off with his head. One woman yelled out, quote, he's a bomb. He's a bomb? Obama, yeah, he's going to go in and blow up the country. He's going to take over the White House and destroy the country.

Yeah. At a rally, Palin blamed Katie Couric for making her look stupid and the crowd turned on the press, screaming at reporters and a camera crew. The sound man was black. A man yelled, quote, a racial epitaph at him and said, quote, sit down, boy.

They wore a Saracuda t-shirts. Palin said Obama was part of a, quote, group that launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our US capital. I mean, this. A man in the audience yelled, quote, kill him. Oh, my God. She did not respond and went on, quote,

Obama doesn't like American soldiers. Oh, my God. Still, Obama won. It was not close. Yes, but we'll put a pin in this rhetoric. Well, the damage was done, wasn't it? The path was laid. This was the first time people saw the right riled up

and what will become normal under Trump. John's campaign was literally the path for Trump. John remained a senator and went back to his normal Maverick ways. On a night in August 2009, he tweeted, quote, late evening with Colonel Gaddafi at his ranch in Libya. Interesting meeting with an interesting man. He left out that he'd offered to sell weapons to Gaddafi

and insured him the US wanted to provide Libya with weapons for his security. John was reelected in November, his fifth term in the Senate. Less than two years later, as the airspring moved to Libya in 2011, John enthusiastically supported removing a guy named Gaddafi from power. Hmm, isn't that his buddy? He made numerous visits to rebel strongholds and then this led to a NATO-backed no-fly zone and a bombing campaign.

Eventually, his rebel friends sodomized Gaddafi to death in the streets. Libya would become a... It's one of those images that just sticks with you. It's not great. Libya would become a bastion of extremism with open slave markets that operate today. John spent years pushing for the CIA to send weapons

to different groups in Syria. While visiting the country, he posed for a photograph of a group of men he said should be given weapons. Two of the men in the photograph were later ID'd as men who had kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims. John Spokesman said that was, quote, unfortunate. All right, we're going to file this one into OOPSI. Okay.

In 2013, I'm going to fucking butcher this name, Iran's former president, Ahmad Dinijan. Ahmad Dinijan. Aaron for three. Said he wanted to become the first Iranian to go to space. John tweeted, quote, so Ahmad Dinijan wants to be the first Iranian in space. Wasn't he just there last week? And then he linked to a story about Iran

launching a monkey into space. Oh my God. He's a maverick. Stop saying that. An hour later, John... That is... Oh my God. What?

What is it? Marmot's racist. Oh, so the guy who voted five times against MLK Day might be racist? Maybe. An hour later, John tweeted, quote, regarding Iran's space tweet, lighten up folks.

Can't everyone take a joke? So he's elected to a sixth term in his entire career. He never won an election without massively outspending his opponents. In the run up to the 2016 election, John said in an interview that the Republican Senate would never vote to seat a Hillary Clinton Supreme Court justice if she won.

That's interesting. Yes, because of Merrick Garland. Well, right. But everyone loves him. Right. In 2015, while Secretary of Defense John Kerry was in the Ukraine trying to boker a peace deal, John was in Congress pushing a bill to arm

the Ukrainian government against Obama's policy. So undermining the policy of the president because he wanted to. And because he's black. In July. Yes. In July, 2017, John learned he had an aggressive brain tumor.

The Republican Senate was voting to kill Obama's health care plan. Oh, John flew out to cast the deciding vote to allow debate to proceed. So if he'd gone out and voted for debate, not to proceed, it would have ended everything right there. But what he did was he flew out and voted for

debate to proceed on Obamacare, whether or not to kill it. But he was deciding vote on whether or not they should keep debating about Obamacare. So he could have flown out and voted to stop the debate on Obamacare being reversed. And that would have been the end of it. Right.

But he didn't do that. He voted to continue the debate. Half Maverick. Which means that for a few days, everyone in America is terrified and being basically held under just complete fear that they will lose their health care. He also gave a speech about how bad the

parties were and criticized Democrats for passing Obamacare in the first place. On July 28th, the Republicans put a repeal bill to stop parts of Obamacare together. John rolled into the Senate. Oh, right. Walked up.

That's what I was thinking. Gave a big thumbs down killing the bill. Liberals went crazy for this move. The Maverick had done it again. Liberals did not seem to notice senators Mikowski and Collins had also voted no. Repeatedly. Yeah.

The media was all over John the Maverick again. Vox and other liberal media companies lost their minds at the greatness of John. In 2015, he had voted for a bill to gut Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Oh, and he had just voted for the Republicans previous attempt to repeal the bill. But now he's a hero because he voted

out of spite against Trump. But the media let John get away with everything. In September, 2017, he was interviewed by Jake Tapper about North Korea. John said, quote, if Kim Jong-un acts in an aggressive fashion, the price will be extinction. One would think a senator casually making a remark about genocide would lead to a follow-up question

by Tapper. Now he just moved on to DACA. So was the life of John McCain. John died from brain cancer on August 25th, 2018. After he died, liberals sent around a video on social media of a time that showed what a great man John McCain was. He was in Minnesota during the campaign against Obama,

and a woman called Obama, quote, an Arab, and John Correcteter. 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. So first point, he just, he didn't defend Arabs at all. He acted like they're all bad.

Second point, this was a moment of his own making. This was the height of he and Palin calling Obama a terrorist and putting out ads saying he was un-American and putting out ads in which he was making him seem darker-skinned and calling him a fucking terrorist. He had one moment of near decency in the middle of a heinous campaign, and this is what people decided to pass around.

The next day, on a phone call with reporters, one of McCain's national security advisors rattled off a list of villains who supported Obama. Including Iran's Akhma Denigin and Hamas. And the Riddler. John McCain was literally laying the path for Trump. At the end of his campaign, he began insinuating that the election result was rigged for Obama.

And clearly Trump watched all this. An argument can be made that John McCain may have done more damage to this country than any American in history because Trump followed his path. The Maverick. How do you feel about John McCain now? Want to go get milkshake? Man.

What this story is, is the story of the worst media in the fucking world. Jake Tapper, Vox, all these motherfuckers are not doing their job and pieces of shit are being repeatedly elected and put into office and they're fucking monsters. And they get to get away with it and do it repeatedly. The truth is that there's always going to be

liars and evil people. The bridge we have is that media tells us what's going on. And who's good and who's bad. And they umpire it and now at this point they'd rather be in the player's locker room than in the stands. I mean, I remember the election and I remember feeling super uncomfortable watching the rallies. But until I started reading again and going through.

The McCain ones. Yeah, until I started reading again and going through the transcripts and going and looking at some videos and watching what had actually happened, I totally had lost the connection that, oh, that's exactly what Trump did. There is no difference between the campaign

that McCain ran in the last month and a half and the McCain and the Trump. There is no difference, particularly when it comes to Sarah Palin. But calling him a terrorist, you know, all the racist shit. Well, and Palin attacking the media for saying that asking questions is out of line. And as much as John McCain wants to act like he picked the wrong person, he engaged in all that shit.

He approved all that shit. Yeah. He's the one who put out ads and saying he was a terror. Yeah, McCain's a McCain's a fucking evil motherfucker. And he set this up. If John McCain doesn't do that, do those people come out of the woodwork? If they're not, if they don't feel that the that they're that they're highest,

their highest elected official is using their speech and pushing their agendas. Do they do they come out? Does Trump make that move? Because for every guy that does something, there's a path. Someone is always putting a path down. And the truth is that it's like, yeah, it's it is. It's the foundation because it's like,

it's like a lot of stuff in hyper hyper normalization where it's like, the way this stuff starts and escalates. Like it didn't start with suicide bombings. It started with someone throwing a bomb in a crowded area. Right. And then all of a sudden, you know, they have someone has an idea to actually just like convince people that you go to heaven if you put a bomb on yourself.

And then that's and then it's just like that evolves further and further. And that becomes commonplace. And then you have like suicide. Like it all it just all starts with a wish. That all starts with one kooky thinker who's just like, you ask why I ask why not. Jesus God. OK, so I'm going to give this speech. Like three weeks ago, the IPCC put out a report.

And that is the basically the UN group about 155 climate scientists. And they are pretty conservative in what they usually put out. And they basically said we have 10 years to change what we're doing. We have 10 years to stop using the amount of carbon we're using and to change the way that we exist on this planet. And if we don't change that in 10 years, it's over. At that point, we spiral out of control and our children live in a hell world in 1560 years. So, you know, the other day, my son, my son asked, we were driving and he said,

hey, I want to when I get older, I want to own a house. And I want to get married and I want to play baseball. And my first thought was, well, you're and he said he wanted to have kids, two kids. And my first thought was, well, you're not going to have children. Because if what we're doing occurs in 10 years, no one's going to have children. Because look at what's happening in California now. In and that's from the pollution we we put in the atmosphere in the 90s. We haven't even gotten to the pollution we put in the atmosphere.

To date, that comes in 25 and 30 years. So we have to do something. Right. We are controlled by fossil fuel companies and a GOP that doesn't believe in science is out of their fucking minds and a media that doesn't give a shit. Because they're also controlled by big corporations. So we came up with this group. It's called Planet Change 10. P L A N I T Change 10.

Two words, plan and it. Yeah. Right now there's a Facebook group and a Reddit, a subreddit. There's a Twitter. There's going to be more things. We'll do a web page. We have to talk to organizers, but we want people to go sign up now. Here's the idea. Everyone's trying to have this discussion on an intellectual level. And there's no way to combat the bullshit and stupidity and nonsense that comes back

at scientists and scientists have done the job. Scientists have proved that climate change is happening. There's no debate anymore. There's no questions to ask. Only people are debating or the oil companies. And if you don't believe in that, then you shouldn't believe in air or the ground or grass. It's just something that is. The argument also has changed so much. It changes all the time.

Their argument was it doesn't exist. It's not manmade and now it's shifting into, hey, it's too late. Sorry. Right. So the fight is something we need to undertake. Because scientists have done the job and now it's time for people to take over and people to communicate. And what's happening out there is people are scared. Like when I talk to my kid, I'm fucking devastated. And I feel bad about his future.

And there's a lot of parents out there that way. And there's a lot of kids I know that go to sleep crying, high school kids. I've gotten three letters after we started talking about this from high school kids who say they're bursting into tears all the time. That's the world we're creating. And it's not even there yet. And we're not even as bad as it's going to get. So what we want to do is use, bring people together because there's a psychological

thing that happens when people learn about how bad this is and they shut down. And it's pretty well documented. So it makes it hard to communicate and it makes it hard for people to do anything and be active. So our idea is to get people into groups in each city you're in, in each different place. And it can be, you can be there in person. We can do meetings where people get together. We can just do meetings online. But the idea is to get people talking about how fucking scared they are and be honest about

this shit and be honest about what's happening to you and how you feel. And in those groups will be artists. We want to bring artists in and we want artists to be inspired to use that fear to create art and that can be videos that can be, you know, just drawings, paintings, whatever. And we just start putting the art out there and the arts message is we are fucking scared shitless and you don't care about our children. Because there is no other way to combat it intellectually. Let's hit people in their heart.

So that's what we're doing. It's called Planet Change 10, P-L-A-N-I-T Change 10. And we'd like people to go sign up and we'd like to get as many people involved in this and get something going. Yeah. Yeah. You think of that doomsday clock part of the problem is that it hasn't struck midnight yet. Like it allows us like there's still time to crunch for the exam and it's like there's not.

There's not. I mean, you know, a town in California was just wiped off the map and there's a great, there's a really great scientist called Daniel Sloan. He's a really, really smart dude and he put up some tweets that explained why it happened and it's purely climate change. It's 100 percent, it's not the management of the forest. It's not. It's 100 percent climate change and this is what it is.

This is what we're going to live with. Town's burning down. Also, the idea of like the idea that like it is culpability falls on one thing. It's stupid. It's just like the time to argue in mince words over like what is causing fires that are wiping out towns. You know, it's all of them. Yeah.

Like, but the one thing that, you know, isn't always going to be a creator and a starter of this stuff is the thing that we can change, which is manmade climate change, which is what all this shit is. And I think we can change stuff if we hit people in their hearts and their stomachs. Well, and the truth is that it's all like, that's what I mean with the doomsday clock. The shit is going to hit the fan. We're just like, well, it hasn't hit yet. We'll clean the shit out of the fan once it hits the fan.

It's like, no. It's hitting the fan and there's no technical, there's no tech savior coming. That's bullshit. Every scientist who knows anything is like, no, that's garbage. Well, it would also be nice to actually just treat the earth well for the sake of just taking care of the earth. We've got fucking solar. We got wind.

Let's get it going. Yeah. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, Aaron. Great call on how to pronounce Mak Buda Demon Johns name. We signed cars. Hi, bird ones.