john mccain, whatever else you think about the rest of john mccain's career in politics, john mccain is someone who diz not fail that test of leadership when he ran for president in 2008. >> i can't trust obama. i have read about him and he's not -- he's an arab. he is not -- >> no, ma'am. no, ma'am. >> no? >> no, ma'am. he's a decent family man, citizen, that i just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. that's what this campaign is all about. he's not. thank you. >> you know, john mccain's vice presidential pick sarah palin did at times in the campaign traffic in presidential conspiracy theory about barack obama, but john mccain pretty much did not. and the campaign did not. he was offered the opportunity to traffic in conspiracy theories about jeremiah wright and bill ayers and the president being a secret terrorist or secret muslim or maybe secretly foreign, and he said no. a lot of the right said yes, but the candidate himself pretty much in 2008 said no. and john mccain today in the united states senate stood up and took that same kind of moral stand again. >>

but mccain isn't the only one to speak out. he's the most public and high profile, but ed rollins, who also ran michelle bachmann's campaign for a short while, he wrote a scathing piece where he called her extreme and dishonest, bachmann had difficulty with her facts and said she was down right vicious. he said what she's doing is akin to mccarthyism. congressional sources said they say bachmann is doing this as a fundraising tool. >> despite the condemnation from mccain and ed rollins, you said this might play well for some in the republican base? >> michelle bachmann's letter came out june 13. if you go back two years ago on june 6, it was the rally against the ground zero mosque in lower manhattan which became a huge election issue, really brought out the tea party and sort of the right wing fringe of the republican party. and so i think that's exactly what's going on right here, or at least that's what bachmann is trying to do. i think she may have gotten a little over her skis and this blew up a little bit in her face. i t

and mccain said he told her, look, huma isn't the problem. but i should tell you mccain isn't the only one to speak out. he's the most public, our old friend here at cnn ed rollins, he wrote a scathing piece where he called her extreme and dishonest, he noted that bachmann had difficulty with her facts. and in this case he said she was downright vicious, and what she's doing is akin to mccarthyism. i can tell you that's what's in public. privately some top congressional sources have told me that bachmann is doing this as a fund-raising tool plain and simple. >> alex, despite you said this might play well with some in the republican base. >> it's interesting. michele bachmann's letter came out on june 13th. if you go back two years ago on june 6th, it was the first rally against the so-called ground zero mosque in lower manhattan, which became a huge election issue. really brought out the tea party and the right-wing fringe of the republican party. i think that's what is going on here. at least that's what bachmann was trying to do. i think sh

you had john mccain and doing what john mccain does best, which is speak independently as a maverick, and he called this the way he did. boehner came out after and said it was dangerous stuff to be talking about, but that was not a strong response from the republican party. they did not single out for criticism those who made the scurrilous attack. >> you mean something so low as when we had the tucson shootings, and gabrielle giffords was shot, and it was implied, aactually said by "the new york times" and democrats that this was attributable to sarah palin -- all that speculation that went on for three or four days, and the president did not step in and stop it? >> i am going to stop this. turmoil in the middle east. >> assad is losing control, of violence is increasing rather than decreasing, and all our partners need to come together and support a transition. >> this week a bomb tore through a syrian security compound and killed three high- ranking officials, including assad's brother-in-law. russia and china vetoed a resolution that would apply sanctions against the syrian govern

mccain was absolutely right. you can quibble or have serious disagreements with to into obama's foreign policy, but throwing her under the bus is ridiculous and as dangerous as joan boehner said. the worst thing is it's a distraction from what the campaign should be about, which should be about the economy. now, if you're talking about some of the rhetoric coming from mitt romney and others, listen, all is fair in love and war when it comes to politics. those are saying the same thing about mitt romney, calling him un-american. stephanie conner is calling him a felony. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. has anybody questioned his citizen ship? >> well, they have questioned where he's putting all his money. >> they are talking about -- to me there's no -- >> they are questioning everything about him, yes. >> no difference between questioning a guy's tax returns and no american. there's no difference. >> there's a difference between the rhetoric of michele bachmann which is horsele and the rhetoric of -- >> let's go

but i should tell you mccain isn't the only one to speak out. he's the most public, our old friend, ed roll ins, he wrote a skathing piece where he called her extreme and dishonest, she had difficulty with her facts and he said she was down road vision. and it was akin to mk car thiism. >> alex, despite you said this might play well with some in the republican base. >> it's interesting. michele bachmann's letter came out on june 13th. if you go back two years ago on june 6th, it was the so-called rally against the ground zero mosque which became a huge issue. i think this is what's gg on right here. i think she may have gotten over her skis and this blew up in her face. i think she was keeping this for just the base audience. she didn't tweet about it or put it on her facebook page, but she did go on a radio show, so i think this was a message aimed at her base trying to gin up anti-muslim fever before the election and it blue up too big. >> you've been out on the forefront reporting on this for a long time and you have put a lot of focus on thi

i think mccain was absolutely right. you can quibble or have serious disagreements with obama's foreign policy but throwing her under the bus is ridiculous. it's as dangerous as john boehner said. it's a distraction from what the campaign should be all about, which should be about the economy. if you're talking about the rhetoric coming from mitt romney and others, all is fair in love and war when it comes to politics. they're saying the same thing about mitt romney. they're calling him unamerican. stephanie conner is calling him a felony. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. has anybody questioned his citizenship? >> they've questioned where he's putting all his money. [ talking at once ] >> they are questioning everything about him, yes. >> no difference between questioning a guy's tax returns and whether he's american or not. there's no difference. >> there's a difference between the rhetoric of michele bachmann which is horrible and the rhetoric -- >> let's go on here. >> john sinunu apologized for the comments and he sh

66% voted for president obama versus just 32% for senator mccain.ad. only 60% of young people are actually registered to vote, and of those registered, only 56% say will definitely vote in november. a new nonprofit campaign called i vote hopes to re-energize the youth vote and get them back to the polls with videos like this one. >> a woman comes forth with this hilarious claim that she's having is so much sex. what does that make her? >> if it's an honest rape, i would give them a shot of estrogen. >> do you think the supreme court should overturn roe v. wade? yes, i do. >> it simply says ultra sounds will be given to the woman to decide what she should do. i believe this is something that helps the dignity of woman. >> what does that make her? it makes her a slut. >> joining me now, one of the co-founders of the i vote campaign and jessica sanders who directed the video. is there a singlish smu, a number one issue that appeals to the youth vote? and is it reproductive right as highlighted in the video? >> i think it's a number of issues. if you ha

a, john mccain lost. b, john mccain was also the guy who had that problem of not being able to return how many houses he had, which probably the romney campaign doesn't want to remind anybody about. more importantly, c, john mccain seriously considered mitt romney to be his vice president. vice presidency, and this is a strange thing about our politics, it's a really important job that in effect is chosen mostly by one person. there isn't an election to see who becomes the vice presidential nominee. you're just hoping the presidential nominee individually, personally picks you. in that contest in the last election, mitt romney was up against sarah palin for vice president. and mitt romney lost to sarah palin. john mccain denouncing today what he called a stupid question about that today. saying the reason he decided not to pick mr. romney for vice president after he vetted him for the job was because, quote, we thought sarah palin was the better candidate. he meant this as a sign of support for mr. romney

. >> he has released only one year, to the mccain campaign, he released 23 years. and he's telling the american people, i'm not going to give you what i've given john mccain's people in 2008. and when he gave them 23 years, john mccain's people looked at it and said, let's go with sarah palin. so whatever's in there is far worse than just the first year. >> the obliviously rich mr. romney made his case this morning to his oblivious friends at "fox & friends." >> you know, john mccain ran for president and released two years of tax returns. john kerry ran for president, you know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. somehow this wasn't an issue. the obama people keep on wanting more and more and more. more things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try to make a mountain out of and to distort and to be dishonest about. we're going to put out two years of tax returns. we've put out one already. >> joining me now, krystal ball, co-host of msnbc's "the cycle." david cay johnston, pulitzer prize

it was mccain who got up and defended her. i think that tells you a great deal about mccain. i think mccain did it as much for his relationship with hillary clinton as he did defending the young woman. >> they did vodka shots together. tell me something i don't know. >> hispanic vote, romney campaign is not giving up. expect a large expensive sophisticated effort to try and gain four to five points among hispanic voters in key battleground states, nevada, northern virginia, colorado, florida. >> and north carolina. david ignatius. >> you skipped me. >> i was going to give you the last word on this. >> if obama wins, he is going to need a new secretary of state because second clinton is leaving. the talk in the white house increasingly is that it will be susan rice, our u.n. ambassador despite a lot of support for carey who love it. >> a lot of women are rattling to it. >> i think she is really pulling ahead in this field. >> interesting. all right, kathleen. >> on a lighter subject, i finally got to the bottom of the romney's car elevator question. this is where we went with

senator mccain has mentioned them earlier and they were. thamte fe,all the way o.u oernhm nd not ant much. i was there five years, four months in two weeks. sounds like a long time. varez who is your it o u d tavauisons hepiwae es pow eight years six months he has had such a remarkable x. in the year sense. i wou love to hav mta the'hewse us tonight, several that i haven't seen in a while. one that i want to mention especially because he arrived in i was jim rner re i di.@@ ermc. od shark. [applause] we rode the tracking in tun away together, bouncing along like it's going to the market. we thoughte might be going to the slauterhouse. et o inelx l a seven feet. that's about the size of a small bathroom. we had three-gallon bucket and then, but it wasn't just jim and it f o untso s and my six and a half by seven-foot cell with our bathroom, living room, bedroom and our dining room for the next nine months. and that is generally the way i fe. coanner seemed to be in a suit to keep bodies form, especially the first winter. cember was so hot we had heat rash and some

the mccain who wouldn't go along with every crazy idea his party came up, the old john mccain took to the senate floor to attack the bat crap crazy as ever michele bachmann for accusing a state department aide of being a secret agent for the muslim brotherhood. the target of bachmann's madness is huma abedin, who leaders around the world recognize as always being at secretary clinton's side and became even more recognizable here when she was being chased by cameras during coverage of the twitter scandal involving her husband, former congressman, anthony weiner. and now i give you a moment of the old john mccain. >> these allegations about huma abedin and the report from which they are drawn are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated american, and a loyal public servant. >> today michele bachmann's former campaign chief of staff, chief ed rollins, called congresswoman bachmann's allegations against huma abedin outrageous and unsubstantiated, adding, "having worked for congressman bachmann's campaign for president, i am fully aware tha

fletcher you and meghan mccain barely knew each other you got into an r.v. you drove cross-country together i got to ask you i mean what was the most surprising thing that you learned. i guess the most surprising thing is the people that we met we met hundreds of people very few of them wanted to describe themselves as either a republican or a democrat they would say i'm a republican but or i'm a democrat but. and it surprised me a little bit because we hear so much about polarization which makes you think oh there's these there's these partisan people who are so entrenched in their own camp that they can't see the other and in fact that's kind of the opposite of what we've found that people are sort of looking for more of a middle ground i guess that goes to show to some of the differences between some of the smaller towns and cities in this country and where i am in washington where polarization is the name of the game but you know if you look back to the two thousand and eight election it wasn't just washington it was all across this country a lot of peop

our big story tonight, in-depth with john mccain. i sat down with senator mccain a while ago in the armed services committee hearing room, and can i tell you that his reputation as a maverick, he was very candid. he disagrees with what justice scalia said about super pacs, he will talk about politics, michele bachmann and what america thinks of bain. senator, thank you. it has taken 18 long months. you finally cracked. >> finally gave in. looking forward to it. >> so have i, very much. let's start with, we are three months away from the election. you have been exactly where mitt romney is right now. what is your device? what is the real strategy of this stage of the battle plane that you think he needs to be most aware of? >> i think it is very obvious, pies. that's jobs and the economy. most people don't care when mitt romney left bain capital and went to run the olympics and save them or exactly where his tax returns are. so i think that the focus, obviously, is what most americans are caring about now. we do have it very sumbling

john mccain. what he really thinks about this campaign. >> i have not seen a presidential campaign where that campaign sunk that low this early. >> about money and politics. >> i promise you there will be scandals. if you think watergate was big, if you think abramoff was big, just wait when you see what happens. >> plus, syria and america's role. >> it's a total failure of american leadership. we could bring the assad regime down. >> and about his controversial running mate sarah palin. >> i think that she at the end of the day was the right choice. >> john mccain, ever the maverick. >> i am the luckiest guy you will ever interview of all the thousands of people that you have interviewed. >> plus, former army chief of staff george casey. why he says this country can't go it alone in syria. this is "piers morgan tonight." >>> in depth with john mccain. i sat down with senator mccain a while ago in the armed services committee hearing room. he was very candid. he disagrees strongly with what justic

mccain's defense of abedin has triggered several comments from republicans. the speaker john boehner also weighed in. >> from everything i do know of her, she has a sterling character, and i think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous. >> yet bachmann is standing by her rhetoric. >> if my family members were associated with hamas, a terrorist organization, that alone could be sufficient to disqualify me from getting a security clearance. >> let's turn to democratic strategist chris kofinis, welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> bachmann says the content of these letters are being distorted and this is about serious national security concerns. come on. tell us what this really is about. >> listen, i think this is about a -- an extreme agenda that clearly a wing in the republican party has that congresswoman bachmann represents. i mean, if you step back and you think about what she said, it has to be one of the most despicable things at least i've heard in politics in a long time. that says a lot. there's a lot of despicable things said

meghan mccain. the darling of moderate republicans hit the road with comedian michael ian black to learn about people and politics across the country. the duo paired up to show the different sides of the democratic and republican parties. >> i met michael he was filming a pilot for the e! network and i was the guest on the pilot episode. he called me and was like i failed career i have an expresidential candidate's daughter how far have i fallen i've never heard of you. he was on twitter because as people do now we follow each other on twitter and said do you want to write a political book together and i said yeah. >> the road trip spanned the entire country hitting major cities such as last vegas and washington d.c.. and also small towns. to get a flavor of what really matters to people on main street. >> i had an amazing time for the entire month we were on the road together. my favorite places were new orleans, because we had a fun time touring treme and all the old blues and jazz areas of the ci