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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian letter show WNYC. Good morning again, everyone with us now, John McCain's former chief of staff biographer and a new book and frequent speechwriter, Mark Salter, it's in that role speechwriter, that Mark comes back on the program mostly today, he's been thinking about one speech in particular that he wrote for Senator McCain, something we will likely hear no version of this year. It was McCain's 2008 concession speech after Barack Obama was elected president. Here's the final one minute of that speech,

John McCain: Senator Obama and I have had argued our differences and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him but offering our next president, our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans, and please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

Brian: John McCain on election night, 2008. With us now is Mark Salter. The writer of that speech, former McCain chief of staff and author of the new book that contains a description of the speech, The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain. Mark, we appreciate your joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mark: Thanks for having me on Brian.

Brian: Before we talk about that concession speech, what's the role of a concession speech in a democracy as you see it?

Mark: All right. I think it's to acknowledge the obvious and to reassure your supporters, that the battle was hard-fought, but fairly lost and to move on, that you have responsibilities to the country as a candidate for president that you have to shoulder even in defeat, so you put on your best face and go out there and do your duty by the country.

Brian: What kind of conversation or conversations did you have with Senator McCain about what would go into that speech in 2008? It did seem apparent in the final weeks of that election that he was likely to lose.

Mark: We knew going in at the outs were stacked against him and he knew that and come to terms with it really, even before the election, he fought as hard as he could right up until the votes are starting to be cast, but he knew what was coming so we had talked in general terms about what he wanted to say and he wanted to emphasize. He recognized that there was a historical significance to Obama's election and he wanted to emphasize that, say that he recognized it and that it was a good thing for the country.

As a personal matter, McCain was a very restless soul and he never wanted to live in an experience once it was past its expiration date even, if it was a good experience, he just wanted to move on to the next thing, he wanted to move on the day after the election and he wanted his supporters to move on too, so that was a part of it. We had talked, normally he's a very suspicious guy as many Navy guys are and he never really let us write two speeches as is often the case with candidates, they'll have prepared a victory speech and a concession speech.

He wouldn't do that, he thought one would jinx the other. I would take notes and we would come up with a general framework in our minds, but he wouldn't let me really start typing until we were pretty sure of the outcome. Maybe after the second wave of exit so he gave me leave to write it a little earlier this time just because he understood this might be perceived as the most important speech of his career that it would merit history's notice so he gave me a leave to write it a little earlier, but out of habit, I waited until I got the word from one of our political guys. There was no track in the war room that it was going South and it was safe to write a concession speech.

Brian: It's sad in a way to think of somebody who did so much in his life as Senator McCain did that his most historic speech or one of his most historic speeches might be his concession. Where do you think it does fit in the canon of John McCain's words?

Mark: Oh, I think it's right up there. I'd say one of the four or five most important speeches of his career. I think he gave a speech on the Senate intelligence committee's torture report, which I think has historical significance. The speech he gave after he was diagnosed with cancer on the state of our politics, I think that'll be up there too and the speech he gave when he was really rather ill in Philadelphia with Joe Biden and then years and years ago, I think the speech that mattered the most to him personally, he was asked to give the commencement address at the Naval Academy, I think in 1993 and that speech, I had never seen him rehearse one diligently as that speech.

It mattered to him. His father been a four-star Admiral, he had given the commencement speech and he had a love, hate relationship with the Naval Academy and graduated fifth from the bottom of his class and he wanted to note that in the speech, but that was up there, but I think in terms of historical significance, he knew going in that he would be remembered for what he said and he wanted to-- What's missing I'm afraid in politicians lately is-- McCain was very much motivated by the opportunity to not only be remembered by history but to influence history.

That really was a driving ambition of his. When you have that kind of ambition to be remembered by posterity and not just advance your self-interest in the moment, you have a tendency to rise to big occasions or tries hard as you can to rise to big occasions. You don't see that as often in politics anymore and that's a shame.

Brian: My guest, if you're just joining us, is Mark Salter who had been chief of staff to Senator John McCain, often a speechwriter for him as well including his 2008 presidential election concession speech, which is mostly what we're talking about in the context of Mark's new book, The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain, which includes the story of that speech. Obviously, the reason we're talking about it is that it doesn't look like a concession speech of any kind is going to come this year, which is a historical anomaly, and which might have consequences. Listeners, we can take some phone calls from Mark Salter.

I wonder for one thing if anybody listening right now is a politician who's ever had to give a concession speech yourself or even a staffer for a candidate who's ever been around for a concession speech and if you have any thoughts on the importance of them or their role in a democracy, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 or anything you want to ask Mark Salter, 646-435-7280 or tweet @brianLehrer.

Mark in the clip that we played the last minute of that speech, Senator McCain referred to having differences with Obama. That's only normal. I think so much of our politics these days has been smoothed over a rough dark, depending on your point of view to Trump over here and everybody else over there. Do you recall what some of the biggest policy differences were in that race?

Mark: Oh, well, Iraq was one. Senator Obama had opposed our incursion into Iraq and McCain had supported it. McCain was a strong outspoken supporter of the surge. I think he recognized in time that the decision to go into Iraq was a mistake based on faulty intelligence, but he still felt it was important to win that war. I think that was a primary difference and they had differences in health care.

McCain had a very systemically different approach to healthcare insurance than Senator Obama did and then sort of meat and potatoes differences on taxes and regulation, things like that. McCain was pretty, depending on your point of view forward-looking on climate change. I don't think there was a world of difference between him and Obama on that. He was also as a quite an advocate of reform and campaign finance reform and other forms of political reform so there wasn't a great deal of difference. I don't think on that, but it was mostly war and peace issues I think that was probably the most contested issues in that race.

Brian: You mentioned campaign finance reform I think people forget or people came of age later maybe never knew that Citizens United, the iconic Citizens United ruling was a striking down of the campaign finance reform law that was supposed to keep big money limited in politics, known as McCain-Feingold for the bipartisan drafting of it from Senator McCain and Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Mark: Yes, that's correct. It gathered most of it, not all, but most of it. I think reform has been trying to figure out how to get around those objections by the court, but it may wait quite a while for the politics of the court to change.

Brian: It's interesting that you mentioned climate change. I was going to ask you to check my memory on that, and I guess you just did because as I recall it and I didn't get to look it up before the show, they had both endorsed a cap on carbon emissions and allow companies to buy and sell pollution credits, but they called the cap and trade system.

Mark: He and Senator Lieberman had sponsored legislation to that effect.

Brian: I think they agreed largely on comprehensive immigration reform, a path to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants who had been law-abiding plus more border security, maybe something like a wall.

Mark: McCain was the primary Republican sponsor of three different iterations of immigration reform, bipartisan immigration reform. The last one passed when Obama was president with Obama's support by a majority of I think, 67 votes in the Senate so an overwhelming majority of veto-proof majority, even though Obama was supportive, there wouldn't have been a veto, but John Boehner declined to bring it up in the House.

Brian: The Republican house with the tea party faction or whatever you would call a faction that was more hardcore on immigration was opposed to it and it died. Again, for people who didn't live through this history or people who forgot it on these two huge things, McCain and Obama had basically an agreement cap and trade and comprehensive immigration reform. What did McCain think about the rise of the McConnell and the House Republicans rejectionist Republican that was based so centrally on rejecting those two consensus positions and really gave rise to Trump?

Mark: He disagreed with a lot of things President Obama wanted to do too, so he didn't mind fighting about it and he was a good, tough Republican, but on immigration reform, he knew that it had Boehner brought it to the floor of the House. It would have passed by an overwhelming majority, it would have gotten plenty of Republican support and overwhelming support from the Democrats. We would've solved the problem. He always looked at that problem.

What frustrated him about that problem was he just didn't think it was as big a problem as we make it out to be, he used to have this [unintelligible 00:13:12] "It's not like fixing Medicare." There was an obvious way to approach this thing and we all know what it is and it just frustrating that we couldn't do it. It was part of what he thought is the tyranny of small differences, we were exaggerating our disagreements and that's really been a feature of our politics for a while now, wherein 2012, when you think about it, the major policy dispute between candidate Romney and candidate Obama was a three-and-a-half point difference in the top marginal rate, not exactly something you rushed to the barricades.

We inflame our basis and get them all fired up and make these files never to compromise one iota on this issue and that issue and that issue so consequently, we get nothing done. I mentioned earlier, the speech he gave after he was diagnosed with cancer and he had a tumor removed from his frontal lobe, he came back to the Senate floor, it's a speech he had wanted to give and he'd called me about before his cancer diagnosis. It was when they were debating the alternative to Obamacare, which would be known euphemistically as the skinny repeal.

He was appalled at what was happening to the Senate, where we were exaggerating these fights and everybody, both parties, all the decisions that were being made by the leadership in the leadership offices of both parties, McConnell's office, and Chuck Schumer at that time but before him, Harry Reed and that the committees where bipartisanship flourished, typically were on committees and those are the members you've worked most, longest hours with and got to know best and you would usually start out differences and your committee has responsibilities to report out certain legislation every year and that's how things moved.

That was all being preempted by the aggregation of power and the leaders' offices and this maximalist approach to politics where you get elected by swearing you'll never compromise with those ravenous son of a guns and the other side and the mess we're in now is nothing gets done. Absolutely nothing gets done, which feeds the frustration of American voters, and is this kettling for these big bonfires of phony arguments.

Brian: Although another way to look at it regarding the last few presidential races could be, tell me what you think about this, that ultimately neither McCain or Romney was angry or radical enough for Republican America as it exists. That was such a populous fervor for somebody to come along and in fact, squelch comprehensive immigration reform and in fact, stop anti-climate change policy because for whatever reason, they saw their interests at stake in that, that the turnout for McCain was low, the turnout for Romney was low relative to Donald Trump when he came along and play to those passions that may be pre-existed in the land.

Mark: That may be true, Brian. Someone wiser than me would probably be better to comment on it. Donald Trump just turned out 72 million people to vote for him. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I see him as transparently unfit for the office and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could see them otherwise, but 72 million people is extraordinary.

Now, not all of those, or maybe not even the majority of those see Trump and so this almost comic book image of himself that he tries to convey, but the 72 million people could look at just, let's just separate the pandemic, the unmistakably clearly, unavoidably incompetence of the Trump administration during this pandemic, which has gotten a lot of people killed that shouldn't have been.

It's hard for me to understand and I'm not sure what it is and how you go about getting it, but it is telling people fictitious, it's telling people, it's giving people and not 72 million people don't want around nursing their grievances and resentments and look looking for somebody to blame, but there is a big chunk of the Trump voter, the response of being told that whatever dissatisfaction they have in their own life, some Mexican did it or some Muslim did it or some Washington Insider did it to them like any good demagogue or bad demagogue, he gives them somebody to blame.

That's the secret to his mojo. I used to think the way this country was set-up and the general opinion of most Americans was we were somewhat protected from that sentiment, but evidently not.

Brian: My guest is Mark Salter, formerly chief of staff for John McCain writer of John McCain's classic concession speech, which we played a clip of before after losing the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, it doesn't look like we're going to hear any concession speech, even after the electors are seated this year from President Trump. Mark Salter's new book contains a description of the time of that concession. It's a book called The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain. Mark, I asked if any politicians are listening who had to ever deliver a concession speech, and sure enough, here comes David from Grand Forks, North Dakota, David you're on WNYC. Hello from New York.

David: Hello, Brian. I was the Democratic-- Go ahead. I was the Democratic candidate for attorney general in this big red state back in 2018 and was the same night that a us Senator Heidi Heitkamp lost, but they weren't calling that race until later, so I was told to get up to the podium in front of all these national media people who were there and make a long concession speech.

You want to be magnanimous, but you also see the-- In my case, I saw the corruption that oil money has wrought into the politics of our state particularly becoming a very one-party Republican-dominated state. I launched into that and it was quite an experience, you want to be magnanimous. You want to be historical to some degree, but I was also tasked with consuming time so it was interesting.

Brian: Good story. Thank you, Dave. Rayanne in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Mark Salter. Hi Ryanne.

Rayanne: Alexa off.

Brian: Ryan are you there? Oops, Rayanne either hung up or we lost her line. Let's see. How about, sorry to stall here. Let's try Andy in Brooklyn. Andy, you're on WNYC with Mark Salter. Hi there.

Andy: Hi, how are you doing? Thanks for the show Brian and Mark Salter. Thank you for penning some of the most patriotic speeches of the last 10 years. I'm curious about how Senator McCain bore the incredible insults that Trump keeps upon him not being a hero, being a loser for being captured, and how he felt about the number of veterans who are among the MAGA Corps, why he thought that might've been, thank you.

Mark: The first part of your question. I remember it well because I'd called them up and we both had hot tempers and I called him up, pretty worked up about it and he surprised me by being pretty casual about it. At that time, no one is really taking Trump all that seriously and McCain had never taken him seriously. He just laughed it off and said something like, "Reporters are going to spend the weekend talking about what a war here I am." That's not a problem for me. That's a problem for him. On the veterans, I think a lot of veterans obviously support the Republican candidate.

I think we'll see when some of the political scientists start studying the exit polls after they're waited to turn out and stuff here, I think you're going to find that a lot of military people. I think probably a lot of veterans probably stopped, didn't support Trump, his re-election this time, other than that general habits of not all veterans, but I think Republicans generally take most of the military vote probably was the case in 2016, I think his numbers probably have come down in that community.

Brian: Before you go, Mark. I think I saw that Cindy McCain Senator's widow is on the Biden transition team. Is that right?

Mark: Yes, she endorsed him and channeled her husband, I'd like to think. I try not to make definitive statements about what he would have done in this election because it's not fair to him he's gone. He had strong opinions and didn't like people to make his opinions for him, but he didn't vote for Trump last time and I'm sure he wouldn't have voted for him this time and he and Sandy were a long-time good friend to the Biden’s and he knew and respected. They had their disagreements, of course, as Cindy does with him, but they liked and admired Biden very much.

Brian: What's her role? Is it more than symbolic? Do you know?

Mark: Oh yes, I think so. She was just calling me and asked me if I had some recommendations for anybody. I said they better go find some-- I'm a Republican and [unintelligible 00:23:44] right now. I'm afraid Trump will be gone in a couple of months, but Trumpisms still seems to be the flavor of the day in the Republican Party. I'm not sure I am or will be a Republican again, but I'm definitely not a Democrat, but yes, they're--

Brian: In other words, she's helping them look for nominees for certain positions.

Mark: She's indeed.

Brian: Very interesting to see what marks she leaves on that process. Mark Salter, former chief of staff to John McCain is the author now of The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain. Thanks so much for coming on, Mark. We appreciate.

Mark: Thanks for having me Brian, really appreciate it.

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