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tv   Inside Politics  CNN  August 30, 2018 9:00am-10:00am PDT

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tomorrow he'll lie in state at the u.s. capitol and saturday there will be a memorial service at the washington national cathedral. cnn has learned that mccain's 106-year-old mother roberta is expected to attend the services in washington and at the naval academy in annapolis, maryland. mccain will be laid to rest there sunday in a private ceremony. and thank you so much for joining me today. our special coverage of senator john mccain's memorial service with wolf blitzer and dana bash starts right now. ♪ ♪ you're looking at live pictures of the arizona state capitol. i'm wolf blitzer. this is live cnn special coverage, a celebration of john mccain's life. you're looking also at live pictures right now. this is the hearse, the
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motorcade that will be taking the casket of senator mccain. it will be escorted from the capitol to a phoenix church will his remains will be greeted by his family, close friends, well wishers and nearly a quarter of the u.s. senate. we have a team of reporters and experts standing by. we'll cover every minute of this very, very moving moment. our chief political correspondent dana bash is in phoenix right now. she's at the church where this remarkable ceremony will happen over the next hour or so. dana? >> wolf, obviously it's been an emotional week already. mccain's family wept over his casket yesterday. the state's governor said arizona without mccain is like picturing arizona without the grand canyon. and today here where we are at the north phoenix baptist church, the pews will be packed with those who knew mccain for decades, including former vice president joe biden. and mccain himself planned all
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of this. when mccain's casket leaves the church, the pallbearers will carry him out to frank sinatra's "my way," fitting for a life that traveled down each and every highway, marked by love, laughter, and courage. even in death, john mccain did it his way. here in arizona with me, two people who covered john mccain on the campaign trail. with me, particularly in 2008, maeve reston and jonathan martin. we were talking about how it's fitting to have this kind of sendoff first here in arizona. arizona was as much john mccain and his essence as washington or the military. >> yeah, i mean, he always said before arizona, he didn't have a home because he had traveled as a navy brat as a child. he said this was the place that enchanted and claimed him. here at his church, the church he began attending with cindy, it was just a really special place to him, and he wanted to honor the state he loved so much. >> and jonathan, the fact that a
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quarter of senate, democrats and republicans, are traveling here to arizona to be here for this church service says a lot. >> well, john mccain was a man of the senate. he came to washington, first to the house in 1982, but then at his first chance, he came to the senate to replace barry goldwater. >> jonathan, sorry to interrupt. i just want to say we're seeing cindy mccain walking ouz there, getting ready for the motorcade, of course with her children. on one arm, jack mccain. on the other, jimmy mccain. >> army and navy each.
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>> family is gathered. the casket will be brought from the hearse. the motorcade has now arrived at the church. this is a moment that the family certainly will appreciate. this is going to be a very, very moving ceremony. nick watt is on the scene for us right now. nick, tell our viewers what we can anticipate. >> reporter: well, as you say, wolf, right now we're seeing the family waiting for the arizona national guard to carry that flag-draped casket out of the arizona state capitol into that hearse. then the motorcade will move through the streets of phoenix to that baptist church in north phoenix where the service will begin. members of the public holding mccain signs, lining this route right now. he's been lying in state here since yesterday. members of the public were standing in line for more than three hours, waiting to file past and pay their respects.
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21 people actually had to be treated for heat-related issues. the people of this city, of this state saying good-bye. back to you, wolf. >> yes, the casket is going to be leaving the state capitol, heading over to the north phoenix baptist church, where the ceremony will occur. we anticipate that will last for at least an hour, hour and a half or so. dana, you're there on the scene for us. you're already at the church. what are you anticipating? >> well, wolf, first i just want to note what we're looking at right now. as nick talked about, these are members of the arizona national guard, but they have a very personal connection to the mccain family. maeve, talk about that. >> these men that we see in front of us were actually, i believe, part of jimmy's platoon. jimmy, of course, enlisted in the marines first and now is in the arizona national guard. so these are people that he
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knows and he served with. that's one of the touches that was so important to the family. >> jimmy mccain, who enlisted in the marines, as you said, during the iraq war, something that john mccain, who was at the front of policy and the fight over that war, never, ever talked about. then he left and became a member of the national guard. there you see his friends, as you mentioned, from his platoon. >> although, remember on the campaign trail in 2008 how cindy always had her phone out in the back of the bus when reporters were there talking to mccain, in case jimmy would call, always worried about him. >> i remember. and of course there's one son. his other son jack mccain is right in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, great grandfather, an officer in the u.s. navy. >> s.e. cupp is with us. i know you're very close with meghan mccain. as you're watching this
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ceremony, it's only just beginning right now, the motorcade will leave the state capitol and head over to the north phoenix baptist church. what goes through your mind? >> this is stirring. it's solemn. it's day two. there are three more days of these kinds of incredible, incredible tributes and honors of a man who was important to this country, especially important to this state. arizona is a very special place to mccain and to his family. if you've been to their ranch, it's nestled in this gorgeous valley on this beautiful river bend. it's impossible not to realize how touched senator mccain was by the beauty of that place. i know in his final months, weeks, days spending time there with his family, with meghan, with cindy, with his other kids in that beautiful valley was healing and gave them all great
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peace. >> there's going to be at least a couple dozen u.s. senators who will be attending this ceremony over at the north phoenix baptist church. almost half of them will be democrats. >> yes, well, this is why we so mourn john mccain because he was, as jonathan martin said, a man of the senate. he believed in the institution. as firm as he was in his views, he was someone who always reached across the aisle. he had deep friendships with people across the aisle. ted kennedy was one of his great friends. and you hear really reverential stories from people on both sides of the aisle about mccain. he was truly an iconic figure in the senate. i think particularly at this fraught time, there's a sense of real loss in the country because of that. >> his nickname as the maverick
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clearly takes on a significance right now. right now the mccain family and the senator's casket will be -- in fact, they are right now making their way from the state capitol to the church. the former u.s. vice president joe biden is already there. he will pay tribute to his very, very close friend. our cnn special coverage will continue in just minutes. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it helps block six key inflammatory substances. most pills block one. flonase sensimist. new shine compulsion. from maybelline new york. feel the compulsion. hydrating oil-in-lipstick. color so saturated. shine so irresistible. feel the compulsion. maybelline's new shine compulsion. only from maybelline new york.
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you're looking at live pictures from inside the north baptist church here in phoenix, arizona, where at the top of the hour, we are going to see and hear an incredibly moving ceremony. meticulously planned by senator mccain himself, along with his
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family, to help send him off from and in the land and state he loved and represented for more than three decades, arizona. also, there's a live picture you're seeing of the hearse carrying senator mccain, making its way from the state capitol here in phoenix where we are to the church. and i can just say, we did a drive similar to this, this morning, and there are flags planted along the way, there are old mccain lawn signs from his campaigns planted along the way, in an organic way, to pay tribute to the senator. i want to bring in jill hazelbaker, the mccain communications director in the 2008 campaign. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> your thoughts as you're watching these pictures of the hearse carrying the senator here to this church.
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>> well, just an incredible outpouring for an incredible american. what you're seeing all over the world is people whose lives he touched and whose lives he impacted. i think it's a wonderful remembrance of an outstanding american hero. >> jonathan martin and maeve reston are also here with me. as we watch this scene, we talked a little bit about arizona and how important arizona is to him and the specific way he planned the service that we're going to see in a short while. >> you know, he was, as always, impatient about getting it done. he really focused on it, spoke at great length, obviously with cindy and mark salter as he chose the verses and psalms and the hymns he wanted at this funeral. many of them are touchstones
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throughout his life. at the service on saturday, his son jimmy will read a poem by robert lewis stephenson that mccain read at his own father's funeral. so really personal to him. >> it's perfect john mccain too. this is somebody whose life was marked by both the deepest reverence for duty, honor, country, tradition. but also someone who was deeply irreverent too. to start with "amazing grace," that traditional hymn that's a staple of so many funerals, but to end with frank sinatra's "my life" is quintessential. >> it sure is. jill, you are extremely pregnant. >> ten days away. >> you traveled here for this. but you also are wearing john mccain's bracelet, his p.o.w. bracelet. >> yeah, so i'm ten days pregnant, and when i went to my doctor to say i needed a hall pass to get on the plane, she
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told another doctor in her practice about where i was going. the doctor sent this bracelet to my home. it turns out that his mother-in-law was a nurse during the vietnam war and wore his bracelet all these years and that he had kept it. he asked me to wear it to the memorial service today. that just tells you what a huge impact the senator had on people's lives. >> it sure does. there's no question about it. and jill, you got to know the senator. we knew him as reporters, but you knew him as a staffer. we call you fondly mccainiacs. what's it like? >> all of us are here today ping that tells you something about what he meant to us. you know, i first met senator mccain in new hampshire, a state he loved for their strong libertarian streak, but also because he had beat george bush in the state by 18 points four years earlier, eight years earlier. >> who's counting though? >> who's counting.
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so the state had always really rewarded him. i think about the trips we had there, the blizzards we trudged through, the time on the bus with him, and it was just a special thing to be a part of. >> everybody stand by. we're watching, as we've been saying, the hearse carrying senator mccain go from the phoenix capitol to the church where we are where he will have a beautiful sendoff, a ceremony at the top of the hour. he'll be welcomed with by nearly a quarter of his former colleagues in the u.s. senate. our cnn special coverage will continue very shortly. we'll be right back. e send our t into the world, full of hope. and we don't want something like meningitis b getting in their way. meningococcal group b disease, or meningitis b, is real. bexsero is a vaccine to help prevent meningitis b in 10-25 year olds. even if meningitis b is uncommon, that's not a chance we're willing to take. meningitis b is different from the meningitis most teens
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looking at live pictures of john mccain's motorcade making its way from the arizona capitol here in phoenix to where we are at the north phoenix baptist church. on the other side of the road there, cars are stopped. sometimes that happens for security reasons, but sometimes it also happens for reverence. there's probably a combination of both happening right there. people understand all over the state and all over the country and the world indeed what is happening today, but they're particularly feeling it very, very hard here in john mccain's beloved arizona. here with me now is his
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colleague, his fellow senator from arizona, jeff flake. senator, thank you so much for being with me. appreciate it. what goes through your mind as you're looking at those pictures? >> all over the state on all the freeways, the electronic billboards have been programmed to say, you know, john mccain, rest in peace. all around the state today people are in mourning but also a great celebration for a life well lived. john mccain means a lot to the state. >> he sure does. and the state and just the grand scale of the memorial he planned along with his friends and family, of course, here in arizona and then of course what we're going to see in washington. then at the naval academy. what does that tell you about his leg sacy? >> well, we're very fortunate he called arizona home. he heard it said that he never
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felt home until he was in arizona. what i will remember more than anything is traveling around the state with john to the small towns, to the north and far south near the border, up in my hometown of snowflake, where he would kid me endlessly that i would never be elected were it not for my hundreds of siblings and thousands of cousins. he's just quintessentially arizonan. >> and you were with senator mccain's family, his wife cindy, his children last night. how are they holding up? >> you know, cindy's a rock. she really is. you can imagine what she's been through for the past several months with the focus of the country, you know, on her and her husband and the family as well. i think she's just handled that so well. i just am so, so appreciative. i think all of us are, that they took such good care of him and kept him involved where he could
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be a voice this year, this past year when his voice was needed more than ever. whenever i'd go to see him, there he was with briefing books on his lap and fully engaged in what was going on, talking to his staff and others. it was a wonderful celebration last night with his family. >> and senator, i know understandably the governor is not talking about his replacement until after the internment. but given the fact the senator planned everything down to frank sinatra being sung here and danny boy at the national cathedral, it's hard to imagine he didn't have an opinion on who would replace him. without asking you for a name, can you tell me if yhe discusse that with the governor? >> you know, i don't know. the governor hasn't said. this is the governor's decision. i'm sure if john mccain had thoughts, he would have shared them, but this is up to the governor. i'm sure he'll make the right pick.
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>> thank you very much for joining me. thank you. and we're sorry for your loss. >> we all are. this is arizona's loss, but it's the country's loss too. it really is. >> senator, thank you so much. and john mccain's casket will soon arrive here at the north phoenix baptist church. how the senator's children plan to honor their dad, that's next. who would have thought, who would have guessed? an energy company helping cars emit less. making cars lighter, it's a good place to start, advanced oils for those hard-working parts. fuels that go further so drivers pump less. improving efficiency is what we do best. energy lives here.
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you're watching our cnn special coverage, a celebration of john mccain's life. we just heard from the sarah palin family. sarah palin, the former vice presidential running mate of
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senator mccain back in 2008, will not be attending this ceremony or indeed any of the ceremonies in the coming days. you're looking at live pictures of the motorcade carrying senator mccain's casket to the north phoenix baptist church where this ceremony is about to begin. we're getting new information object absence of sarah palin. >> so wolf, what we do know was that senator mccain did not want sarah palin to come to the service, and we've just heard from a source close to the palin family, quote, out of respect for senator mccain and his family, we have nothing to add at this point. the palin family will always cherish their friendship with the mccains and hold those memories dear. the reality is when john mccain felt he made a mistake, he said it, and he said recently he felt he made a mistake picking sarah
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palin as his running mate, that he wished he had picked joe lieberman. as we were saying earlier, there's nothing hypocritical about this funeral. he planned it. the people he wants are there. the people he didn't want weren't invited. >> and that's very significant. becky, you're a former mccain chief of staff. you know this story well. >> you know, i'm pleased with the palin statement. i think that it shows -- i think it's respectful in this time that's very complicated. i spent a lot of time with governor palin and her family during the '08 campaign, and this statement rings true from my interactions with her. i do think that there is a genuinely mutual respect between them. i think the years since have gotten a little complicated. i think we can all agree our politics have gotten a little complicated since '08.
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but i do think that between the governor and the senator, there was a mutual respect. i think it seems to me like this statement reflects that. >> why wouldn't he or the family, for that matter, have wanted her and her family to at least participate in some of these memorials? >> i can't really speak to that. the senator had such an incredible life. i think today would be great if we could focus on his legacy and all the great things he did and maybe put some of these other stories to the side. that's really what's important today. >> it seems like this is a microcosm of the larger issue here, which is when he -- he wanted joe lieberman, as you said. he said that. he wanted him as a symbol that he was about country first and not party first, and he wanted to bring the country together. he could not get joe lieberman through the republican convention. he accepted sarah palin, really to try and energize the base, the emerging base of the republican party and came to
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regret that. that struggle went on throughout the rest of his life between the kind of politics that john mccain believed in and the emerging majority within the republican party. >> congressman charlie dent is with us as well. you lived through that era, as all of us did. >> yeah, i remember specifically in 2008 at a campaign rally in bethlehem, pennsylvania, where both john mccain and sarah palin arrived and sarah palin was late. i was talking to john mccain for a while. you could tell there was a certain tension. having run it that year, i got to tell you when he selected sarah palin, it did bring a certain energy to his campaign. i saw people showing up at the call centers were much more energized. i think he was conflicted. she was a very polarizing figure on the one hand, but she brought a certain energy to his campaign that it lacked a the that moment. >> she was also sort of, i think, safe to say without spilling too much tea, a divisive figure within the family as well. in the moment i think she was
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the pick. maybe if this service were just john mccain, she would have been invited, but there's a circle, a web of networking people around her that became complicated for this family. i think the senator, you're right, always respected her but came to not appreciate the direction she decided to go in politically. >> any second now, senator mccain's casket, the motorcade will arrive at the north phoenix baptist church where the former u.s. vice president joe biden, nfl all-pro larry fitzgerald, among others, will honor their friend. our special coverage continues.
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of senator john mccain, his family in the motorcade as well. all of this unfolding very, very dramatically. s.e., let's talk about your friend meghan mccain. we saw her sobbing yesterday at her dad's coffin. you know her well. i assume there's going to be more of that. >> yeah, i can't imagine getting through the next three days. you know, this is a man who certainly deserves all of this pomp and circumstance and honor and celebration, but as a member of his family, i can't imagine how they will get through because it is so emotional. and as much time as meghan and the family had to prepare for this and as much time as they spent together, and it was really good, quality time, clearly as we've seen from meghan and the family's reactions, it wasn't enough. she's not ready to let this man
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go. their relationship was incredibly close. they spoke multiple times a day. he leaned on her not just as a daughter, as almost another adviser. he would call her to ask what she thought of what he had just said or what, you know, the president had just done. or do you think republicans are getting the strategy right. so she was a confidant, someone he relied on personally, politically, in all senses of the word. it was mutual. she is, i am sure, devastated. we are heartbroken for his family. but she will get through this. she is as strong as he was, and it doesn't get said enough, her strength comes as much genetically from cindy as it does from john. so her mom and her family will get through this. >> they certainly will. becky, you worked with senator mccain for a long time. talk a little bit about senator
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mccain the family man. >> oh, it's hard to imagine a man who is more proud of his family. he has seven children. he has this incredible wife, like s.e. was saying. you look at the things that cindy has accomplished in her life and her work on human trafficking and her work on eliminating land mines, and he loved to talk about what they were doing. he loved to elevate what they were doing. obviously both jack and jimmy and their military service, he was very private about that, but it was something he could not have been prouder of. meghan has accomplished so much. i remember her still as one of the blogettes on the presidential campaign. she's done so much in the media since then and so much personally. the family is always focused on giving back. you see that, the concept of service and giving back to the country and serving something greater than themselves. yes, while john mccain personified that, he clearly taught his children that, and i
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have complete faith we're going to continue to see this in the years to come. >> can i just add, in addition to all of meghan's incredible personal accomplishments, he was so proud to hand her off to her husband-to-be just last year. it was a wedding that was moved up because of this family event, and it made him so happy to know that she was going to be taken care of by someone as wonderful and loving as ben is. >> david, the motorcade is about to arrive at the north phoenix baptist church. you can see our live pictures coming in. the moment will be powerful, especially when the former vice president joe biden speaks. >> it certainly will be, wolf, because i think -- i cannot remember, maybe axelrod can correct me, i cannot remember a senator other than ted kennedy who went out with such a
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statement. this is remarkable. this is about what a president gets. i think it speaks to the outpouring of not just respect but nostalgia or a politics that once was. >> hold on one moment. dana is out there at the church. i know the motorcade is arriving right behind you, dana. give our viewers a sense of what we're seeing right now. >> solemnity, respect, a sense frankly of awe that you can feel. it's palpable here as you can see behind me the motorcade is arriving. forgive me as i look over here. i can see these cars that are clearly carrying the family, and as i look to my left here, i see the hearse carrying john mccain, which is going to stop behind me. forgive me as i turn around. i will look because what i'm looking at here and obviously
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what our viewers can see as well is the hearse about to stop, and it will be brought in by members of the armed forces body bearer team. very quintessential john mccain. clearly representatives of all the armed forces who are going to physically but also symbolically bring john mccain in. maeve reston is here with me. >> and you can also see the honor guard that is here to meet the casket of john mccain. they will keep watch over john mccain's casket as cindy and the family head inside to greet the mourners and friends. of course one really important thing here, wolf, is that the family wanted about a thousand -- they made tickets available for about a thousand members of the public. they really wanted just ordinary
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arizonans to be part of this service. >> and we are watching mccain -- john mccain's children also get out of the cars here. his seven children are here, their spouses as well. you see sidney mccain. they will probably be coming into the view of the camera momentarily. >> bridget and also meghan mccain. >> bridget is doing a reading today along with another one of john mccain's adopted children, andrew, which i think is really noteworthy. you see his children there embracing and of course cindy mccain walking in. as you said, maeve, she has been a beacon of strength, of grace. >> she has been, you know --
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many of his friends have said she was by his side 20 hours a day, you know, for many months, ensuring that he got the best care that he could, ensuring that he could stay at the cabin that he loved between sedona and cottonwood, and she has just been going for days now. it was so interesting because at the very end, friends said that john and cindy mccain had so much fun together. they spent all this time together watching movies, laughing, telling stories, and just really had a great final year together. >> yeah, i mean, the irony of the bond they got. i just wanted to mention as i toss it back to wolf, i started to say two of his three adopted children are going to give readings today, bridget and andrew. andrew and doug he adopted when he married his first wife. they were her children. they were always his children.
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bridget, of course, was born in bangladesh. cindy mccain brought her home, without even telling her husband and said this is our new daughter. i think it's really telling that his adopted children are speaking at the service in his adopted home state of arizona. >> and doing readings that really mean a great deal to him. >> wolf? >> you know, it's a moment that is both sad, but it's certainly, s.e., a tribute to this unique man, this celebration that we're about to see as well. >> and just on the family, in so many ways his was a unique family. it was a typical american blended family, so you have these family elements blending together to create this really incredible, strong family unit with such a rich background and diverse interests and ideas. it was really cool, frankly, to get to
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just kind of a typical family. hard to believe a typical family with adopteds and steps and all of that, but you wouldn't know it if you didn't know the biography because they were all just the mccain family. >> and his son actually served, charlie dent, in the u.s. military, but specifically went to the war in iraq while his father was a u.s. senator. obviously working very closely on that whole iraq war policy and strategy. >> there's no question about it. senator mccain was proud of his sons, particularly when he was serving in iraq. i think he was a lance corporal in the marine corps. john mccain was in the middle of all of those discussions at the time of the surge, probably one of the most difficult votes i had to cast at that time. and so john mccain was at the center of the policy. and he had a lot invested in this with his own family, and so we can never thank him enough
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for his leadership. i just want to mention about this ceremony, i'm having flashbacks to arlen specter's funeral in 2012 when joe biden gave the eulogy. we wheeled specter out at the end of the service to "my way" and the two were similar in ways that they could infuriate members of their own party, both parties, and they have these love/hate relationships with their own party. but there's a lot more love than anger with both of them. but it just reminds me so much of that experience in october of 2012, just before the re-election of barack obama. >> you know, i want to just pick up on something that david said. as a young reporter, i covered the death of hubert humphrey and that was another occasion like this, someone who is a larger-than-life figure who represented politics at his best, who was beloved by people on both sides. >> somebody gave a really inspiring eulogy there.
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>> walter mondale did, but i remember richard nixon returned to washington for the first time since he left office to be at that ceremony, and republicans and democrats stood together under the capitol dome, arms locked, singing "america the beautiful." again, something that i think the humphrey family had planned. and for maybe just the same reason, to try and remind us that we have more that binds us together as americans than our tribal differences as parties. >> that's one thing, david, that's going to be so special over today, tomorrow, saturday and sunday. democrats and republicans coming together to praise senator mccain. >> absolutely. if you start with the proposition that he ran twice, presidential campaigns that got pretty nasty, but he's got both of his opponents coming. he has george w. bush coming and he has barack obama coming to give farewells. and you mentioned earlier, wolf, if you look at the senators who are here, there are 26, 22
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current and 4 formers. there are 13 democrats and 13 republicans, dead even. but when you include joe biden, it's 14 -- there are more democratic senators here than republicans. >> the family is now coming out. they're going to be waiting for the casket to be taken from the hearse into the north phoenix baptist church for the ceremony. you see all the military color guards, they have gathered as well. we will watch all of this unfold. jamie gangel, this is a somber moment, but it's a great tribute, as i like to say, to a great man. >> it is. just also, to go back to something david gergen said, there is a nostalgia in all of this for another time. i covered the senate when ted kennedy and john mccain were both there. they were friends, they respected each other. ted kennedy used to say we
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listen to each other. not a lot of listening that goes on today. and i think that from joe biden to barack obama, one of the things that we're seeing here is a very important nostalgia throwback to another time that we're celebrating. >> in that same vein, tom udall the nephew -- >> i just want to point out that the arizona national guard casket team is now going towards the hearse to take this casket. dana, you're right there across the street. >> reporter: i'm just a few feet away and i'm watching from behind cindy mccain, the seven mccain children, watching something that, again, they knew was coming. they knew it was imminent in recent weeks and months. they planned this meticulously,
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but i can't imagine them watching them watching this, how they're feeling right now. to send off this man that the whole world is paying tribute to. but to them, he was just a father and a husband. it's really remarkable to be able to witness this poignant, poignant scene.
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the casket has now gone into the north phoenix baptist church where the ceremony will begin shortly. again, as this was happening, we saw the scene of meghan mccain, his daughter, so emotional yesterday. understandably so today. and she's clinging to one of her younger brothers, jimmy, who of course i'm sure is as emotional but ever stoic in uniform along with another one of her brothers, jack, walking in. maeve reston. >> we also saw there many of the honorary p ochallbearers that j mccain wanted to accompany his body into the church. some of his fellow p.o.w.s, his
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close friends, some of his long-time donors and friends and campaign strategists. each of them taking a part in all of these services that will unfold over three days. >> and again, it is very noteworthy that he wanted this kind of send-off here in his home state, adopted home state of arizona. we're starting to hear the music begin inside. but first yesterday with the remarkable scene at the capitol, people waiting in the 100-plus degree arizona august heat to go pay their respects, and then, of course, the ceremony. which i should say not only have they invited his friends and family, but they left about 1,000 seats that were open to the public, to his constituents, who were able to get tickets online and will be sitting there and will be able to see this beautiful ceremony that the senator and his family planned. wolf. >> dana, there will be tributes that we will see and hear during
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the course of the ceremony, including from the former vice president, joe biden. there will be a prelude, a processional, hymn "amazing grace" and they will read from ecclesiastes. more than 1,000 people including regular folks in arizona have gathered. s.e., this will be emotional and so powerful. >> undoubtedly, undoubtedly for everyone there. it's impossible to overstate how much this man meant to this state and how much this state meant to this man. and so there will be a lot of emotion, especially on the part of his children, i'm sure. you have to remember, john mccain had children over a long time and late into his life. some of his children have yet to start their own families, and so
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you can imagine all of the thoughts that they are having right now as they say good-bye to their dad. there's a lot going on emotionally for all of them, i'm sure. >> becky, we see the former vice president is there. we also see larry fitzgerald, the great nfl star there. they will be paying their tribute among others, including family members. >> yeah. what i'm seeing as the camera has been showing the crowd and as you're seeing the pallbearers he selected, there are so many touches and things that are qui quintessentially arizona. obviously they'll have the service at the national cathedral on saturday, but it's clear to me that this service is really paying tribute to this state that he loved. i know we've said that a lot over the last few days, but i think that that can't be overstated. there are obviously representatives of the native american community there.

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