that update. and thank you for joining me. "inside politics" with dana bash starts right now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm dana bash. john king has the day off. behind closed doors right now, a justice department official that the president called a creep and a disgrace is getting grilled on capitol hill for his role in the russia investigation. plus, north korea warns the trump administration denuclearization talks could fall apart. and former cia chief general david petraeus sits down for a rare interview and shares what he'll remember most about john mccain. >> i'd been confirmed to go to iraq to command the surge. my aide handed me the phone and said senator mccain wants to talk to you. i thought this was going to be a

warm con congratulatory call. i said, senator, thanks so much for all you did to support me through this process. he said, when you leave? i said, senator? he said, when do you go to baghdad? i said, i go back to kansas and wrap things up. he hung up. he was impatient. he was relentless. he was determined. no one had our backs more than he did. >> we start in a state that's been under the spotlight since saturday. today th today, the same day arizona is preparing to pay tribute to john mccain, republicans in the grand canyon state are going to the polls for the other senate seat, the one big vacated by jeff flake. what's really fascinating about today's contest is that it speaks to what we've been discussing since mccain's death. what and where is the heart and soul of the republican party? both in arizona and around the country. three candidates, none embracing mccain, all allies of president trump.

former state senator kelli ward, who joined the campaign trail with controversial figures from the right. and joe arpaio, former sheriff of maricopa county, who got the pardon from president trump. and congresswoman martha mcsally, the establishment candidate who appears to be the front runner. >> 26 years in uniform. she's taken the fight to the enemy and the establishment. >> my friend, martha mcsally, she's the real deal. she's tough. >> like our president, i'm tired of p.c. politicians and their bs excuses. i'm a fighter pilot, and i talk like one. >> someone else talked like a fighter pilot. his name was john mccain. look at that. a fighter pilot turned politician in arizona. mcsally sounds, looks, feels like someone who would be a mccain republican, right? as you saw there, she's wrapping her arms really tightly around donald trump. let's get straight to arizona. cnn's nick watt is following

this closely. nick, what are you seeing and hearing about how the polls are going? what are you seeing from voters there? >> reporter: well, this voting station has been open since 6:00 a.m., and it's been, i would say, a trickle because arizonans do love to vote early. we've got a little bit of analysis of those early votes, which suggests that turnout will be high. one analyst has actually said democratic turnout in certain precincts is, quote, gangbusters. that'll give us an indication as to how people are engaged for the midterms. and if they're going to take the senate, they really, really need this seat. it is attainable. donald trump won arizona by 3.6%. around 35% of registered voters here are registered as independents. there's a lot of middle ground to fight for. on the democratic side, the congresswoman looks to have that

locked down. on the republican side, it's a little more of a fight. it's what one local niez siews called a trumpian hug fest. all trying to prove their pro-trump credentials. joe arpaio saying president trump had my back, i've now got his. it's going to be very interesting to see if mcsally really does win this nomination. jeff flake, the outgoing senator, has said she is the republicans' only shot of keeping this seat. dana? >> certainly think a lot of democrats and republicans agree with that. thank you so much for that reporting, nick watt. here at the table to share their reporting and insights, sirius xm's olivier knox, julie hirschfeld davis with "the new york times". hey, guys. what's today? tuesday? happy tuesday. who remembers these days. i just think this is so

interesting. the timing could not be more ironic or telling. you could use all those words to describe it because this is an actually an issue john mccain had, trying to find his way in the republican party nationally but also arizona. now that's happening with the other senate seat. >> right, and this is sort of a microcosm of the midterm congressional elections coming up, where trump is looming large over all of these contests. many republicans are trying to hug him, to the extent they can, particularly in these tough primaries where you need to drive up intensity. you really need to get those people out. for republicans, this could be a big risk. if you nominate someone like a kelli ward or a sheriff arpaio, republicans are keenly aware, and democrats certainly know, that could be a person that could be more difficult to get

over the line in the general election. >> that's precisely the argument jeff flake, of course who's retiring, in large part because he couldn't win this kind of primary because he had been so outspoken about donald trump. that's the argument he's making about the race to fill his seat. >> particularly a year like this, then have to recover for a primary, a general election where early voting is just a few weeks away. i'm very concerned about the direction of the party. i don't think that we're putting our best foot forward. we may win an election here or there, but in the end, you know, the party will go the way of the wings i think if we continue to drill down on the base and not try to appeal to a broader electorate. >> you remember the wigs, olivier. is that going to happen? >> oh, that hurts. you wound me. you know what i remember, i remember john mccain in 2010,

build the dang fence. anyone who's confused ant arizona politics, go back and watch that. you get what essentially is a trump ad. flake's decision not to fight this time around really exemplifies the way we've come around. there's no universe in which jeff flake is not a conservative. what he is not is trumpy enough. when you see those two races this year versus the mccain re-elect, it tells us a lot about where we are. >> the symbolism is especially strong in arizona where you have jeff flake and john mccain fading out at around the same time. you have a field of candidates on the republican side who want to be the next senator and are competing for president trump's affections and are trying to align themselves with him. it shows the direction of the party, shifting away from john mccain's brand of institutionalism. >> and really going out of their way to embrace trump. especially with mcsally. this is someone who would not

publicly endorse him, was critical of his comments on the "access hollywood" tape, won't publicly say if she voted for him or not. >> for donald trump. >> for donald trump. and now you see her kind of embracing some of his immigration stances, you know, talking about meetings she has with people in the white house. she knows she needs his supporters to win this primary. >> kelli ward is not sufficiently supportive of president trump on immigration. >> and you mentioned that mcsally is trying as hard as she can to get right with trump voters. that really is the fight. let's listen to a couple of the candidates, kelli ward and martha mcsally, in their conversations with our own kyung lah. >> she's pretending to be a supporter of president trump. she's running as though she's kelli ward. we don't need a cheap imitation. we have the real thing. >> i have a 97% voting record

with the president's agenda, more than anyone else in the arizona delegation. so those are just the facts. >> she is a fighter pilot. she is a veteran. she is, you know, everything when it comes to national security at least that you would think would be so up mccain's alley, that she would want to run on the banner of john mccain, the hero, the patriot. and she's saying, i'm just like donald trump, not i'm just like john mccain. it is so fascinating. >> it is. it's such an interesting timing. he's just passed away. the whole country is publicly mourning john mccain. >> and they're about to open the doors in the capitol in arizona today for him to lie in state. >> but i do think that ad is fascinating. she has all the symbolism of i'm a hero, i'm a person like mccain. she's not saying mccain, but there's the clear echo of i'm a fighter pilot, i fought for my country. she wants people to know that

about her and potentially to have independence in the general election, i would think. sort of think of her in that way. but she also, as much as she's talking to trump's voters, she's also -- and i think they all are talking to the president himself. the last thing they want is to rub him the wrong way and get a nasty tweet from him. of course, they would all love his endorsement. what they cannot afford is to have the president somehow distancing himself from them at this critical of a time in their primary. i think that's also part of the strategy here. >> and you bring up a good point. the president hasn't endorsed because all three have been very, very nice to him. arpaio obviously he has a special connection to since he helped campaign with donald trump and then donald trump pardoned him. all right. everybody stand by. up next, are the president's dreams of being the only one to finally get rid of north korea's nukes imploding? we'll talk about that next. ok! our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition... for strength and energy! whoo-hoo! great-tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein and twenty-six vitamins and minerals. ensure.

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breaking news just in to cnn. a study commissioned by the government of puerto rico now says hurricane maria killed thousands more than the government initially said. according to analysis by the george washington university's institute of public health, the storm claimed 2,975 lives. the puerto rican government initially said the hurricane killed 64 people. cnn's layla santiago joins us now. the obvious question is how could they possibly have such a disparity between what they initially said and this extraordinary and very tragic number? >> reporter: well, the other really big question here is will the government of puerto rico, now that this study has come out from george washington university, the official study commissioned by the government, now that it has come out with this finding of 2,975, will the government of puerto rico change its official death toll that as

it stands right now is still at 64. this is a study i've had an opportunity to look over, just actually talked to researchers here at george washington university. they point out issues that led to possible death, issues with communications, issues of things that could have led to what you're saying. the government saying 64 when they believe it could be nearly 3,000. issues of communications, how the death certificates were filled out. and this is important here, they say that they have more work to do. this is only phase one of their study. they really still want to talk to families of those who lost loved ones. that has not happened. i think it's very clear -- or excuse me, very important to understand that this is a study that points out how many deaths are sort of above average at this point. they don't have a list of 2,900 deaths. this is what they are saying is statistically the number of deaths that is above average. but gives you an idea of why it

is much higher than the official death toll. question now, will the government of puerto rico finally change that number? >> absolutely. and of course you know much better than anyone that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that what we're looking at on the screen here is beyond tragic. nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in a natural disaster, which is just horrible and obviously shouldn't happen. thank you so much for that reporting. appreciate it, layla. and turning to the pentagon now, right after his singapore summit with kim jong-un, the president said that the north korean nuclear threat was over. well, today 2 1/2 months later, his defense secretary was asked if he agrees. his answer, well, it's not so simple. >> does the pentagon share that assessment? >> you know, tom, you're asking for a straightforward answer on a complex subject. the bottom line is there was

progress made. the whole world saw that progress when the two leaders sat down. we also knew very clearly this was going to be a long and challenging effort to negotiate this away. >> there are also new complications today in the denuclearization process that the president claimed was done. north korea back channelled a letter to the united states in which it warned talks were in peril. meanwhile, the defense secretary was asked if the u.s. would suspend any more joint military exercises with south korea beyond the ones the president called off after the summit. >> we have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises. we've suspended several exercises at the direction of the president. the good-faith effort was made. we have done no planning for suspending others. obviously we know what exercises

are out there. so we could do that, if directed to. right now there are no plans to go further. >> cnn's barbara starr joins us live from the pentagon. barbara, you can put pentagon speak into laymen's terms better than anyone. let's hear it. explain what he was trying to say and what the significance is. >> well, i think it all boils down to progress in singapore turns into politics between north korea and the united states right now. on the question of exercises, what the secretary is really saying is he's not committing to anything right now. they canceled the initial round this past year. as they look ahead to schedule exercises for next year, they'll make up their mind when they get to it. and it's coming right now, as you say, when the north koreans are trying to put a little doubt about the progress of the discussions with the u.s.,

suggesting that the discussions are hitting a snag. the president responding by saying, okay, well, mike pompeo is not going to north korea then. so you're seeing a lot of political maneuvering on both sides. what it adds up to, i think, we're only going to know in the months ahead. dana? >> barbara, thank you so much for that reporting. back here around the table, olivier, what's your take? >> it's interesting to watch what north korea is doing. most important thing they're doing right now, i think, is moving like gangbusters to normalize their relations with south korea. that's putting a bit of a wedge between the united states and that ally. the sanctions, the maximum pressure campaign seems to be wobbling a bit. you've seen the trump administration impose sanctions on several entities. i'm told there are others that could qualify for those kinds of sanctions. the point about north korean nuclear threat, though, not to get too semantic, threat is capability plus intent. that's why we don't hear a lot about the nuclear threat to the united states. after the singapore summit, a number of trump administration people came away thinking kim really didn't to denuclearize. that is what led them to make

the comment that they thought the threat might be over because the intent was going away. i think they were wrong at the time. i think they would be wrong to say that now. but it's getting hot. >> what do you think in terms of the white house that you cover every day? president trump rightly so was very proud of himself for getting further than he thought anybody else had. took a big chance, a big risk in meeting with a dictator to try to focus on the end, never mind the means. what does your reporting tell you about what's going on within the national security council and the president's thinking on this? >> so the president came out immediately after the summit and made these incredibly exuberant remarks, as you mentioned earlier, that, you know, the threat is gone, the meeting itself had been a huge success. and everyone at the state department, i think, and in the white house who works in the national security area realized that there was going to be a lot of groundwork to be laid and a

lot of follow-up that was going to have to happen to make that a reality, that wasn't actually the reality at that point, but they were going to work very hard to make that the reality. i think what we've seen in the weeks and months since is those efforts have run into a series of brick walls or dead ends, and we've seen mike pompeo wanting to move forward with this appointment of a special envoy and the scheduling of new meetings, but realizing through this letter and through the communication that they're having with the north koreans and the south koreans, frankly, that this is not actually on the track that they want it to be on. and they can't keep saying that these things are a reality if they're not. what you heard mattis say just then, his wording was very careful as it always is. the president directed us to call off those military exercises. if you recall, that took everyone by surprise a bit right after that summit. so we did it when he asked us to, but at this point, they're looking at the landscape and i don't think he sees any likelihood that's going to be happening again. >> let's remember, we've seen this movie before.

in several presidencies of both parties, trying with kim jong-un's father and grandfather to find a way around this and then ended up at a stalemate. that's something that angus king, independent senator of maine, made very clear today. >> this administration doesn't seem to want to remember history. this is the fifth time we've been in negotiations about nuclear weapons with north korea, and the dance has been pretty much the same each time. they come up, they talk about making concessions and backing off, they get concessions from us or from the chinese or from other people that are interested, and then they backslide. so this is not unusual, and i'm afraid what worries me is that the administration might lurch from excessive optimism to excessive pessimism and let slip at least an opportunity to keep talking. >> there's somebody who caucuses with the democrats saying just

at least stay at the table. >> right, and there's a political component to all of this, which is that president trump did get high marks from the public for attempting diplomacy with north korea, which came after a long period of saber rattling that made a lot of people nervous about potentially the worst happening. i was in tennessee some weeks ago, and the democratic candidate praised the president for trying something new and different. but the polls show that the president's handling of this issue seems to be slipping a little bit. i wonder how voters are going to react between now and november, given this was one of the few things along with the economy that the president was getting high marks for. >> in the moment, it was an example of him not caring what history was, not caring what had happened in previous administrations and just doing what he wanted to do. people liked that. but now he's having to deal with the consequences of doing what he's doing, and voters are saying, oh, right, that history we forgot about. that's playing out again >> and look, we're in the middle of this. we don't know how it's going to end. why don't we just quote john mccain now. it's always darkest before it's

black. up next, speaking of john mccain, he certainly was one of a kind. but does that mean he's the last of a dying breed? we'll discuss next. it's time for the 'biggest sale of the year' on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. and now, all beds are on sale. save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. only for a limited time.

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comrade he lost and also about the maverick's mission coming to an end. over at the white house, the president finally did what friends and colleagues were begging him to do, the right thing, releasing a statement on the death of mccain, saying, despite our differences on policy and politics, i respect senator john mccain's service to our country and have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the united states at half staff until the day of his internment. tributes from mccain's long-time colleagues were, of course, more effusive. senators tearfully bidding farewell to their friend, colleague, and adversary. but a curious happy theme also emerged, many of them pointing to mccain as a dying breed. >> we've all heard our whole lives about the importance of patriotism and self-sacrifice. but we cannot take that culture of commitment for granted. the very notion that some causes

really are greater than ourselves only survives because service members and statesmen like john mccain will fight and even die to defend it. >> it's just so fascinating to me. we've seen, obviously, over the last generation a shift from military service being a requirement for the highest office in the land. it was kind of a no-brainer. starting with obviously bill clinton, the first who didn't serve, and then really going up through now. we haven't seen somebody in the white house, even though they had opponents who did have military service. what does that say to you guys? >> i think there's clearly a generational difference here that you don't have the people who served in world war ii. you don't have people who served in vietnam in public life as much anymore. that generation is ageing. but i also think it's a cultural

difference in our politics, this idea that mcconnell was referencing that you're serving something bigger than yourself. john mccain was a legislator who kind of revelled in that process and in that idea that he was dedicated to some ideals that didn't have to do with the "r" after his name. if you look at the u.s. senate right now and certainly the house of representatives, you don't see a lot of that. you see some older members who still have that kind of a take on what their service really means, but that is not the generation of politicians that we're seeing in elected leadership. >> i want to read something from john harris, who's a long-time d.c. reporter, now the editor of "playbook" and politico. he writes, in an age in which most political and media elites have no military experience, there does seem to be a romantic longing for what people imagine the military and its values represent, but in real life when people who claimed that their biographies represent such

virtues actually face the electorate at the presidential level, the response has been harsh. the reason mccain's death has resonated so deeply is everyone recognizes that trump is the more authentic representative of the age. >> it's interesting. mccain and trump. mccain was several years older than trump, but they came from kind of the same world. they both grew up in lives of privilege. mccain went into military service. the president had several draft deferments. now as president, he hasn't been to a war zone. talks a lot about the military but, you know, hasn't always immersed himself in that life to try to understand what it means to be in the military, what the real needs of the military are. you know, as we see our political class get filled with more and more people who don't have a direct tie, they haven't served themselves, their child hasn't served, there is this

fear that there's this disconnect between the policies that we're making, the decisions that we're making, and what's actually happening foreign policy-wise. >> yet, to be sure, we're talking about the presidency, but on a lower level, it still exists. we talked about martha mcsally. i want to play one quick ad from m.g. hager. >> i was on a rescue mission in afghanistan. as a combat search and rescue pilot. i heard the windshield crack and realized i'd been shot. but we continued the mission and air lifted the patients out. after taking even more fire, we crashed a few miles away. i strapped myself to the skids and returned fire on the taliban while we flew to safety. that got me a purple heart, and i became the second woman ever awarded the distinguished flying cross with valor. >> i love that the military -- the vets we've been playing who are running for office, by the way, both are women today.

>> it's interesting to hear how they talk about their service. that's very interesting. we have quite a few combat veterans coming into congress now in the senate, in the house. that's a function of the fact we've been at war for 17 years. so the people who were 18 on 9/11, shortly after 9/11, are now rising up as a political class. military service is clearly not sufficient. just ask president wesley clark. but it clearly is important to a lot of the biographies of these candidates. maybe not in the way it was for h.w. bush, clear war hero, but it wasn't enough for john kerry. and it wasn't enough, for that matter, for john mccain. >> after mccain, there's only one vietnam war veteran still in the senate. that's delaware's tom carper. there are many coming into congressional from the iraq and afghanistan war, but it's a different generation. those wars were not as part of the draft. >> that's an incredible stat. okay. up next, a guatemalan woman says it is the u.s. government's fault that her child died. send you running... can

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topping our political radar today, a guatemalan woman is blaming the u.s. immigration and customs officials for the death of her young daughter. attorneys for the woman say her 18-month-old became gravely ill while she was in i.c.e. detention and was given sub-standard care. the little girl died six weeks after their release. i.c.e. said in a statement to cnn it's committed to ensuring the welfare of everyone in its custody. and support appears to be unraveling in the senate for attorney general jeff sessions.

publicly rank and file members seem to be pushing the president toward finding a new attorney general. cnn is told sessions' team is counting their friends right now because it seems that no one is rushing to the microphone to defend him. case in point, here's lindsey graham on nbc. >> this relationship is beyond repair, i think. the president's lost confidence in jeff sessions. i'm telling you what everybody in the country knows. this is a dysfunctional relationship. we need a better one. is there somebody who's highly qualified that has the confidence of the president that will also understand their job is to protect mueller? yes, i think we can find that person after the election, if that's what the president wants. >> i think we know what the president wants there. up next, a key figure in the conservative case against the russia probe gets a capitol hill grilling. your hair is so soft! did you use head and shoulders two in one? i did mom. wanna try it? yes. it intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free.

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intrigue on capitol hill this hour surrounding a closed door hearing with a justice department lawyer. right now bruce ohr is facing questions from lawmakers about his involvement in the russia probe. depending on who tells the story, ohr is either a player of relatively little significance or a lynch pin in the deep state theory to stop the president. >> what we see is at every critical juncture when we've been able to see something happen, whether it was christopher steele's testimony or interview in italy, whether it was the opening of the original investigation, whether it was the fisa application. every single time there was significant contact between christopher steele and bruce ohr prior to that. so it could be an unbelievable coincidence. i believe not.

>> so congressman meadows and other conservatives say that ohr's action put the soul of the justice department at stake, but we haven't seen their evidence or e-mails, text messages, notes penned by ohr because none of it is public yet. i want to talk about this with cnn's sarah murray and cnn legal analyst shan wu. sarah, explain what the lawmakers on capitol hill are looking to get from this justice department lawyer. >> i think part of the reason they're so interested in bruce ohr is because he did have this contact with christopher steele. he's this ex-british spy who assembled the now infamous dossier which has all these salacious allegations against then-president elect trump. many of these are unproven. we've seen this has been especially politicized on the house side among those committees. this whole investigation has been. i think they're looking for any kind of indication that bruce ohr is one of these justice

department officials who had it out for the president, who's trying to get anything on him from day one. but we have some excellent reporting on our cnn digital site today with all these people who have worked with bruce ohr who are shocked this guy has ended up in the middle of this. he's been the target of republicans. he's been the target of president trump. they're saying this guy was a pretty vigilant investigator. he spent a long time working on organized crime cases. he was very supportive of his colleagues. he was always pushing to take cases to trial. they say this guy was pretty by the book. he knew what he was doing. they're stunned to see he's the center of this controversy. >> when a bureaucrat becomes a superstar or maybe even infamous in his case. just to take it up to 10,000 feet a little bit, what republicans are doing with this is also, as sarah mentioned, trying to undermine the whole genesis of the russia investigation because they argue that this dossier was part of it. we also know that there are other factors that went into launching this probe, right?

>> absolutely. i think unfortunately why this may have a little bit of legs for them is it is unusual for someone of ohr's experience to go and have this many meetings with somebody who's no longer an fbi asset. if they're friends, that's perfectly fine. i do that all the time. but i don't come back and then get debriefed by the fbi about it. that suggests that somebody was authorizing him to do that. each time he meets them, he thinks, there's some news here i better tell people about. that's going to cause a lot of genuine curiosity. that's going to give that whole inquiry more traction than it would normally have. >> that's really interesting. before we take a break, i want to mention a conversation i had with rudy giuliani yesterday who said they have not heard from mueller's team in three weeks. about three weeks ago, team trump sent over another outline of what they would be willing to deal with in a potential, underline potential, presidential interview with

robert mueller. they haven't heard back. there's nervousness. >> well, absolutely. i think there's been nervousness all along, but rudy giuliani has been voicing a lot of confidence that in the end they would be able to work out terms in order for this to happen. he's been saying both publicly and privately there's great peril and the people around the president think there's a lot of risk in him sitting down with mueller and his investigators. but obviously the key question is what kind of questions he's going to be willing to answer. mueller and his team did not seem to be happy with the opening gamut they got from rudy giuliani in terms of really narrowing the scope to only things that happened after he was in office. so clearly there's a back and forth there that's gone cold because i guess the assumption would be that mueller is sort of switching tracks now. >> exactly. that's the question. what track? in the 15 seconds we have left, what's the other track? could he be working on a subpoena? could he be saying forget it? >> i'd be a little surprised by a subpoena. the other point, rudy giuliani,

if you call him back today, might say something completely different. so i don't want to overcommit here. i'd be a little surprised by a subpoena. these are fights that have happened in other administrations. there was a fight with george w. bush talking to the 9/11 commission. there was a very long fight between bill clinton and the starr grand jury. wait and see how this plays out. >> and was he calling from the golf course or coming back from scotland? >> to be fair, i just got a text, and giuliani said, they still haven't heard back from robert mueller. that's a good button for this conversation. thanks, everybody. thanks both of you for your reporting and insights. up next, former senator joe lieberman gets candid about the time he was almost john mccain's running mate. unlimited ways to be you. unlimited ways to share with others. unlimited ways to live for the moment all for as low as 30 bucks a line unlimited for you

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yep, thanks guys. i think he might need some support. yes. start them off right, with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. now save $150 on this dell notebook at office depot officemax. senator john mccain wrote in his last book "the restless we have a" about his biggest regrets in life. he said one of those regrets was not choosing democrat turned independent joe lieberman as his running mate in 2008. i sat down with lieberman, and he gave me a behind-the-scenes account of their discussions, which went as far as vetting him for the vp slot. >> he wanted you to be his vice presidential running mate. >> so i hear. >> he never told you that? >> no, he did. i'll never forget. rick davis, his campaign manager, called me up, i don't know, july or june 2008. said, john wants to put you on the short list to vet for vice president. i said, you're kidding me. no, no, he's serious.

i said, just tell him he doesn't have to do that to thank me for supporting him. i'm proud to support him. so i've been through this already. no, he's serious. it was typical mccain. maybe it says something about the dialogue between us as friends. the next time i saw him two or three days later i said, hey, rick called me and said you wanted to put my name on the list to be vetted for vice president. i said, are you serious? he said, i am. i said, i don't know how you can do that, as a matter of fact. >> you're not a republican. >> i'm not a republican. >> no, i'm very serious about it. i said, okay, okay. so i think that what he had in mind was two things. one is we obviously know each other well, and he trusts me. and we share a lot of values, but not everything. we don't agree on a lot of domestic policy, but that didn't matter. you know, he knows the

relationship. i think the other thing was that john was smart enough, smarter than i was to realize if he was going to have a chance to win, he had to do something different. what would be more different than to have a genuinely bipartisan ticket? he clung to it a long time, even after people in the party were telling him that there would be a walkout of like a third of the republican delegates because of some of my liberal domestic positions. it was very kind of him to do it. i actually did get vetted a second time. >> he actually got vetted again, even though he had been thoroughly vetted because he was on the democratic ticket, of course, with al gore in 2000. such a story that tells us so much on so many levels about john mccain. he obviously gave in to the understandable political pressures, because there would have been a walkout at the republican convention to have somebody who's for abortion rights on the republican ticket.

>> right. the big other question of this is sarah palin. i asked senator mccain multiple times over the years about the palin pick. he always paused to think. he was reflective. he never criticized it. >> he would never say it. >> he never criticized her, never disowned her. what he always told me was she did what was asked of her, which was to fire up the base. >> to be clear, it might sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is. even in the book he said he regretted not picking lieberman. he never said he regretted picking sarah palin. >> he didn't blame her. >> and it's such an interesting point, too, because clearly the palin pick and the reason he was advises not to pick joe lieberman, in addition to not wanting to have a mess of a convention and alienate a large portion of the republican party, which would have happened likely as well, he was envisioning -- the whole point of this was envisioning a presidential ticket that reached across party lines that could afford to alienate a large portion of the

republican party and draw in independents and even draw in democrats who liked the idea of a more centrist approach from the presidency. and that just was not to be. his advisers basically told him that wasn't going to work. >> let's not imbue the vp pick with magical properties either. >> but it could have negative. >> itbut let's not pretend it h magical properties. yes, it could have hurt him. yes, you could talk about the benefits from the palin nomination. i just don't know a lot of american voters who look at the second name on a president ballot and say, a-ha, this is where i'm going. >> although, with sarah palin, she was one of those names that for a lot of conservatives who couldn't get that excited about mccain, she fired them up. >> they still weren't excited for john mccain. this is one of the reasons he was in so much trouble in his last election. they weren't fired up about john mccain. the tea party didn't like john mccain. i trump base still doesn't like john mccain. >> but there was a big

difference, to your point. i was there between the day before palin was picked and the day after. in terms of the energy -- and let's just remember, john mccain, joe lieberman best friends. all right, everybody. thank you so much. wolf starts right now. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 7:00 p.m. in rome, 2:00 a.m. wednesday in pyongyang. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. a stunning new report shows nearly 3,000 hurricane maria linked deaths in puerto rico, up from just 64. also, a secret letter from north korea to the united states that resulted in the cancellation of secretary of state pompeo's trip to pyongyang. so what was in it? and i'll be joined by pennsylvania's attorney general who says he has evidence the vatican knew about