President Joe Biden recently joined MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Thursday for a wide-ranging interview, which at point turned to the topic of Wallace’s former boss the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
Wallace worked as a top aide on McCain’s 2008 presidential run and recalled that experience while asking Biden about the state of the current Republican Party.
“When I worked for John McCain on the campaign trail, I used to sit in the back of an SUV with the three amigos, him, [Joe] Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham, and we’d be heading into a really important swing state. And I’d be trying to tell them about their local sports team. And he’d be on the phone with Saakashvili and he didn’t want to talk about that. He was almost ahead of his time,” Wallace noted, referencing McCain’s past warnings about Russian expansionism.
“What do you think he would think of his Republican Party?” Wallace asked.
“I don’t think he’d think much of it,” Biden replied, adding, “I don’t think, I don’t know that.”
“Right, you know we can’t speak for him, obviously, but he was so strong in articulating what you just did,” Wallace replied, referring to Biden’s earlier comments on the need to defend Ukraine.
“When I went out to see him when he was dying, at his home in Arizona. He asked me going out and he said, ‘Joe, would you do my eulogy?’ It was one of the greatest honors I’ve had,” Biden said, adding:
We used to, you remember he started working with me when he came back as a prisoner of war –from being a prisoner of war – and I helped talk him into running. And I used to kid him. I said, You’ve got to, damn it.’ And, you know, we used to argue like hell, argue like brothers and we’d end up hugging one another.
“That’s the way politics used to be. You’d fight for the cameras and, you’d,” Wallace replied as Biden interjected:
And then and you may recall I got very upset with the last president and even with my good friend Lindsey, sometimes because the denial. I mean, covering the name on the ship of John McCain. I mean, come on, this guy was a hero! We may disagree, but he was a completely, thoroughly honorable man.
Wallace then thanked Biden for coming on the show and offered him a standing invitation to come back anytime.
After a friendly back and forth Biden returned to the state of the GOP, noting, “This ain’t your father’s Republican Party.”
“I can attest to that. If you ever need a witness, I can attest to that,” added Wallace, who also served as communications director in President George W. Bush’s administration.
