Welcome everybody. A great pleasure for me to have been asked to have this conversation with cindy mccain about her new book stronger and full disclosure i am not an interviewer. John mccain is one of the blessings of our lives. I love this book and ask a read it. But i did read it and i loved it. Its a remarkable story in which you tell a lot of stories and portrays sides of john mccain that the difficult times in your life because of illness where he was not only very but he was very caring and we see a lot of examples of physics dirt city and humor. This is really a a story in the book about you. Its your book and you pay great tribute to john mccain but i look at the title stronger and it didnt sink in and when i finished the book i said whoa this book shows how one person, cindy mccain got stronger over her life read she was tested and she had opportunities that people never have richie came from strength in her own family and she just got stronger and now in this very difficult period after johns death she has dropped understrength and her capacity to carry on so to me this is a wonderful book and it was fun to read. It was great to be with john and hear about him through your eyes but it was also inspirational so i hope people will buy it. Let me start my neutral questioning now. You know for a lot of people they will learn more than they knew before and maybe some people in arizona dont but talk about your family about your mom and dad and the influence that they had on you growing up as their child. Guest thank you for having me and im grateful that you are the interviewer today and im grateful for cspan for having us on. To begin with first of all i love the lieberman family and have been such good friends for us and im grateful for their friendship i really am. My mom and dad in those days they came from absolute nothing. They were dirt poor both of them. My dad became a pilot during world war ii and was a bomber on a b17. It was an amazing time and he was actually lucky to live through. A lot of them did not live through it so with that said and the reason i bring it up is because he began his . When he came to arizona. He went to school in arizona so when he came back from the war and began to build this business with my mother they were such strong people and what he said to me was the greatest thing he ever did was to serve his country and he is corporation is huge now but to him the finest thing he ever did was serve. Says a lot about the man and a lot about the lessons he tried to teach me. My mother was a Southern Belle and my dad router to arizona in the 40s. It was pretty terrifying when she got off the train but they were not just to people thats an understatement but very strong and thoughtful in how they lived which was lovely. Host sounds great. Am i right and i know i am you are an only child . The do you have any reflections on that . At the time i didnt know any different. I know now. I have friends and i have no complaints in my life with my parents at all but i knew when i got married i loved the commotion and everything that surrounds a large family and i remember my mother coming into my kitchen to our house and therefore of them in its complete chaos and shed stand up against against the one she would say i dont know how you do this come i dont know how you do this. So she was the mother of one because that was what she wanted and she had a very shy daughter who is very quiet at home so i didnt make much noise. Host in our youngest child has five little boys one through 10. And when we go there we say, i dont know how you do it. We are blessed to be grandparents we go when we can come back you know. Cindy we are talking about your father and the way he started his business and i didnt know you and john he first ran for office in arizona. But you were at your heiress ate bier erez and this was a business and your dad who had nothing started with his own ability and drive and focus. My parents like the stories of so many people of that day as you know my parents sold everything they had borrowed money and everything you do and the guy that sold a line to my dad which was anheuserbusch they didnt think it would go anywhere and they sold as my dad for 10,000. Lets go to great story. On one of our trips with john and Lindsey Graham and they told us we were joking about the fact that they owned a saloon in a liquor store together. My dad owned a liquor store and he dressed it up and call that a package store. [laughter] i said john its a good thing you married cindy because in your own background you have no connection with business. And its a story about the initial investment. My dad worked in a factory. And my mother her brothersinlaw were in a liquor store and the family said 25 a week before they would let him marry my mother. Buy a case of beer in the case of liquor and sell them to cases. And thats how they ended up being successful. Guess thats a Great American story is what it is. Its an only in america kind of thing. Lets go amen. Lets jump forward a little bit and i love the story that you tell and a lot of people watching probably dont know about how you met john mccain. Guest yeah you know theyd reached the point of my life that i had finished graduate school and i was teaching special ed and i had had enough of the dating and all they college stuff and i was tired of it and didnt like it. I decided i wasnt going to date or get married or that was it. Literally two months later i was with my parents and we were in hawaii on spring break and i was teaching. We were invited to a party held by the admiral and my dad knew the admiral. I saw this guy across the room and thought oh no and evidently according to joe biden he said the same thing about me. We met suddenly in hawaii and it was the uniform. Uniform did it all for me. Host i love the way you said at this point that you werent interested in dating and they were serious. Guest i was just not interested and john among other things i didnt know anything about him and i didnt know who he was. He was home from being a p. O. W. But he was so interesting to talk to and he was so smart and well read and it was like oh i really cant talk about things with this gentleman that are really important things and it was so fascinating. I went back to my word and i married him. Host it was great for him and i think for you two. Tell me about when you dated or earlier in your marriage did he talk to you about hoping to go into Public Service . You know when i met him and married him he was a captain in the navy so we had assumed that he would go on to a command of some kind and that was where my head was. I married a naval officer and that is where it was and he was unable to command because of his injuries from vietnam so he decided to get out. That was when a year after we got married was then he thought i may want to do this. How do we go about this and i said we are going to arizona and i didnt give them an opportunity. Thats where it began. But like my dad with his business Johns Campaign started with nothing. Host thats a great comparison also johns family had moved around. When they challenge him in arizona he was part of the navy family and moved around in the longest place he lived in was that the hanoi hilton. Guest hanoi. I think it was as comfortable for him obviously because was your home in arizona and he ran from there. First he was elected to the house of representatives and you made an interesting decision which a little bit later you say in your own way you are as independent minded and unconventional as john and the sense that while a lot of the spouses and there were wives and members of congress were living in washington and you started in arizona. Tell us how you made it and how it worked out. Guest when john first ran we had no children. During that time when he was running for his second term we had meghan and both of us knew and what little experience i had in washington but he had much more than i did he knew it was not a good place to raise a family and this is what we would be doing at this point he was in the house of representatives. We both wanted their kids to be a priority. I stayed out west and he would come home every weekend and thats exactly what he did. The only time he ever missed coming home while the kids were growing up was to perhaps go on a trip or something. He was always home and i dont think the kids ever felt like you neglected them or anything like that. I would stage it like your dad is deployed in that is how i would put it. Hes serving our country and you will see him so was actually the best decision he ever made a cousin our kids all turned out normal and they are all great kids and very diverse and we are very fortunate to have a great family. Host you are fortunate that you made it happen and you do have great kids. It was very clear to me always how devoted they were to you and john and how grateful they were because you are always there but john made them feel that he was there to and i know you travel a lot together but he would call you but it also call the kids. Oh yeah. He wasnt much of an emailer, john mccain but the cell phone was invented for him really. So great kids and they carry on now each in their own way. With what you and john taught them. In 1986 i believe the famous Barry Goldwater decided not to run again and john decides to seek that seat and you go to washington and maybe john told me this once but i must have forgotten or maybe didnt but the first couple in congress and the senate to invite you to their home with jill and joe biden. Why do you talk about that a little bit. Guest it was actually in the house because john had travel with joe on trips as his liaison and yes they were the first couple to invite us in and that meant a lot to me because i was very shy and it was a bit like drinking from a fire hose to live in washington d. C. It was a steep running curve and i was grateful for their friendship and they were very nice and very kind to me. It was the kind of thing you dont forget because you become great friends. As you know this town is a company town and in this important that you make friends and keep friends especially the same town youre working in and hopefully our readers will figure out the Senate Family is how i would consider it our very closeknit family so to be able to not have just them as friends but you all has been such a blessing for us and for me especially. That such an important point and two things one is among all the headlines a great debate in one way the senate is 100 people going to work at the same place every day and the extent to which you get on with each other they like you and they trust you really affects how successful you can be as a senator. In the old days as you know as it was coexisting in the mid80s but it is sure change. Members of congress would stay there to socialize with each other. That changed and that was something. Let me jump ahead a little bit cindy but the comment you comment, and the book about the way in which the washington and relations among members of congress and the senate in particular changed over the many years when john was a member. That is interesting. Hymn you know the senate in the early years and i was witness to so many incredible things that occurred but many of them had to do with bipartisanship and i would watch not just john but other members as well across the aisle for the good of the country. There is a famous by the johnnys to have ted kennedy which are infamous but it was never personal. So as the years way and on i know you saw this well they became kind of in my view kind of a deep divide in the senate that was not healthy and also not civil and kind and they think the thing that we all stood for in the members ousted for, it was hard to watch really especially since johns death. It was certainly made very clear but i think the one thing i would like to remind readers is that i believe in american this pendulum that we are in right now is going to swing back the correct way. Thats what americans do. So i just hope that as people read the book that they understand that did i tell the stories of days gone by and the truth of the matter is i believe america will swing back to a more civil society. Host that comes through in your books and its a really Important Message and of course i agree with you and i love what you said about john and ted kennedy. They would fight like well like. [laughter] and i was just saying to people we need more centrism in american politics. And i dont mean moderation. But when i say census democrat and republican, left and right and the critical question today is are you willing to come to the center negotiate and im going to use the word you used to support in a civil and respectful way with their colleagues on the other side and get some things done and ted kennedy was a liberal democrat and john mccain was a conservative republican but they were both centrist when they wanted to be. Probably john more than teddy but kennedy was really amazing. If you wanted to come to the center get something done he they started with the people on this Committee Like mike enzi and all conservative republicans he would figure it out and theyd negotiate compromises. They did a little bit better although no site that 100 of what they wanted. John was wonderful at that and thats partly how we developed a friendship that started and i think we first met each other knew each other Work Together ring to debate over the gulf war of 1991. President bush in a vote on party lines the democrats and republicans worked together in the story that i tell people about john and real quickly to his president to campaign he said you know people ask me about Climate Change and i wasnt giving a good answer. I dont know much about the subject and i know youre interested in this. Maybe we can Work Together on it. We worked together and put out a Climate Change bill that didnt get 60 votes that we got about 55 or 56 but john would say lets go back. You were very personal in this book about challenges you had along the way and with human nature the way it is and the like had some tough problems with that surgery. Really i think the hard part for you was to talk clearly in this book about period of time where you are addicted to opioids and how you ultimately broke away from it and to use the colloquial term culture but the reason i admire you cindy for telling us they didnt have too because it probably has been very helpful to people. We all know people in our family or friends who have been addicted to one thing or another and to deal with this and its human nature in a way and to figure out how to break away from it. When you look back how do you explain how you were so disciplined and healthy minded and you became addicted and how did you break out of it and who helps you to break away from the opioids . Guest for me and for millions of other people that have suffered or are suffering right now its a very cunning enemy. It takes you down before you know what has happened and in those days especially the beginning i had a couple of surgeries and some other stuff. Pain pills are easy and doctors would hand them out like candy. And im not talking about doctors right now so please understand me but its too easy and a lot of times in those days positions would talk to a woman and say oh you or just neurotic. I would say im going to go home and have a drink or take these pills and it will be better. So thats exactly what happened to me. Before i knew it i was completely down the spiral and right in the middle of it. There was a complication and two others it may not be put in their own lives shame is the worst part of it. When youre addicted to Something Like this and you know its wrong and you know you were sick and you know youve got to stop shame is the worst thing you can do to someone is suffering in my case it happened all over the worldwide news when it broke and that was hard because not in my case but it can drive someone back the shame factor. It possibly could hurt them worse. So what i had to learn was number one i can do it but i can stop this. I have the power and a new i had to but i had four children. I just had too much going on and i went in the book it was also hard because john never knew and i dont want anyone to think john was inattentive or didnt care. That was not the case. You become very good at hiding it when you are addicted. I was a master at hiding it. So its tough. Its a very tough problem and its something that americans have got to deal with directly and more importantly making sure that women are perceived and talk to and dealt with from a medical standpoint in a fashion thats helpful to them. Host good for you and two things. One is i was quite taken with the story that your parents really were the ones guest my mom and dad. Host tell that story. My mom more than my dad but they both sensed something was wrong with me that i wasnt right one where another and they came to megan fronted band that night the evening that they confronted me i never picked up another pill nothing and i began going to rehab after that as a result of it. I was so grateful for them talking to me and making me see myself what was going on. Sometimes you have to be confronted by other people. My parents were very good at that. Host it took her medicine strength to do what you did to break the addiction. I wanted you to tell that story because its very important that family members like your parents if they are worried about someone in their family who they think may be addicted to something its really important. I remember years ago i had somebody i worked with who i believed had become alcoholic. He would sometimes not show up for meetings and hed come up with the skus and i began to see his handshake and i just did want to say it to him and that was wrong. Somebody else who worked with him said to him, worked with us really hey you if you are becoming an alcohol if you are going to kill yourself anyway today a and he really was fine but somebody else did that and that is the kind of shame, not like public shame. Guess who its shame. Host you were goodchild and you wanted to make them proud. You felt you had let them down and embarrass them. Guest in my case and excuse me for a trip to things but in my case especially i wanted to because i had been told through the media and books and society in general that as has a wife you had to be perfect. Then i put such pressure on myself to make sure i was perfect. To entertain correctly and you got your career and your kids have to be perfect in all the things as a wife and a mother and a woman. That was all part of me trying to be perfect and realizing that no one is perfect. No one is perfect. Host and its more important for people to hear it from the book that. I was very touched when he described johns reaction both when he found out and you told him about the open rates but later on you suffered a stroke and when i use the word tender a