PHOENIX — Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential concession speech went viral last week. It has at least 19 million views.
For many people, the speech remains a model of how a presidential candidate should behave in defeat - putting his country first.
In an exclusive interview for this weekend’s “Sunday Square Off,” I asked Cindy McCain whether she thought President Donald Trump would give a speech like her late husband’s.
“I don't know what's going on within the closed doors of the White House,” she said. “I do know that it makes a difference.”
McCain’s speech came at the end of a sometimes ugly campaign that resulted in the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American president.
The 2008 result was clear to Sen. McCain early on Election Day, Cindy McCain said.
“If he had chosen to go another way (in the speech), it could have done great harm to the country,’” she said. “This is not about harming our country anymore. It’s about bringing us together."
In his new book, “The Luckiest Man,” longtime McCain confidant and co-author Mark Salter shares what McCain told him before Salter wrote the speech:
“He instructed me to make it as gracious as it could be, to pay respect to the new president. ‘We should say something like, “He was my opponent, now he’s my president.”’
Cindy McCain's endorsement of longtime family friend Joe Biden linked one of the highest-profile names in Republican politics to the Democratic presidential nominee.
She said she hadn’t spoken yet to Biden since his declaration of victory Saturday. But she expects to hear from him Wednesday at a meeting of a transition advisory committee she sits on.